Just throwing this out to see what the general reaction is, what do you think about moving the timeline forward to the early New Republic era, post-RotJ, pre-Thrawn? The reason I suggest this is because:

A: This would facilitate a balanced GCW, as in this time period the Rebels are no longer the underdogs, but are close to equal footing with the imperial Remnants. Features like planetary conquest, overt NR/Imp cities, etc. wouldn't be canon-breaking.

2: It would be realistic for a few (but not many!) jedi to be wandering around.

III: It was an era that lent itself better to individual adventures.

D: There are more planets, species, and toys (read: droids, starships, speeders, blasters, etc.) available.

Lastly: other reasons as I think of them.

I think it's a good idea, but do it as in after a few years of having the game up and fully working with expansions.

I'm not sure it would be a good idea. It might be too much effort to create sufficient content to replace all the content that would become unusable and the lack of the Empire might make it a bit less....well, Star Warsy.

Well, to be fair, for the longest time the vast majority of the novels were set after RotJ. Did that make them any less Starwarsy? No, the authors being really crappy made them less Starwarsy.

Yeah. I'd like to stay as far away from that **** as possible.