I've still yet to see Wave 9 outside of K-Mart, haha. It has hit, but not in great numbers, at a local WM. I keep checking about once or twice a week at various stores, but at this point I'm not going above/beyond either with massive toy runs with toys as my primary goal of the trip.
On the "Alderaan Troopers" thing, I've never liked that...
Partially because they've always been called "Rebel Troopers" in every source, which implied to me they're part of something greater. That leaves the door open that they're just another militia, but it seems teh yavin Tech look is right there on board the Mon Cal ships working so it seems odd that they'd have just technicians from Alderaan ya know?
The uniforms are also pretty weak... Especially compared to the Empire. I'd think Alderaan would have something a bit more proper, more fitted. Something like we see in the prequals. Why from the Prequals to now would Alderaan suddenly have a much cheaper looking uniform ya know? Of course that's always explained away by the times the two films were made, but to me that's a cop-out and so the differences in the two films lends "fictional credence" to the troopers on Leia's ship and at Yavin being a Rebel uniform... Cheap, functional, distinct.
And of course all outside sources (EU) have the Fleet Trooper uniform as kind of a standard Rebel one... to me then the discrepency comes into play in the ROTJ/ANH uniforms, and separting them or merging them. I find it unlikely the Alliance would want to upgrade uniforms... Seems an unnecessary expense, but I can see distinct uniforms between branches for sure. Especially in Star Wars lore where a "Marine" in that world has a pretty different role than a Marine in our world ya know? Not to say the Alliance "Fleet Trooper"/Marine wouldn't see time on planets doing battle, maybe needing some uniform variety or help. I've often thought perhaps that they wear the camo ponchos like Leia/Luke do, or trench coats like Han, or a mix... Those seemed like "cheap outer camo" options to me.
The Alliance Army get the majority of the budget for environmentally specific gear though, in terms of camo at least. That's a reason i've always sort of viewed the Spec Forces guys/Madine from Endor as quite possibly a separate military branch compared to the "Fleet"/Marines.
Another thing you mentioned Lando...
One thing to consider is that the rebellion had just won it's first victory against the Empire at the beginning of ANH
It won its "first major victory", but not the first victory.
The EU has fleshed out that the Alliance had taken down a Destroyer prior to this, a major coup for them, and a Destroyer that had been causing quite a ruckuss. Akin to taking down the Bismark at the earlier days of WW2, it's a major victory, and raised the eyebrows of the Emperor, Tarkin, Vader, etc. They'd been doing other things from other areas for some years though, and one could assume other individual cells or militias had been a thorn in the Empire's side since possibly the very end of the Clone Wars.
Now of course this is EU too, and so "grain of salt" applies. It's something I've always followed though in my little SW world, that the Alliance had been fighting the good fight. They just hadn't taken the fight to the Empire as much as they'd been defending themselves against them, doing hit/run attacks, stealing from them, maybe taking some ships via crew mutinees like aboard the Rand Ecliptic.
This veered way off topic, so apologies to everyone who doesn't give a poop.
I used to have great chats like this with darthschroeder and CorranHorn on FFURG's chat program... I miss these talks. They were a blast. You'd have had fun with it Lando.