I loved, loved, loved the vintage TIE Pilot... It's still one of the coolest vintage figures. His proportions were cool, he was weird compared to other Imperials, and he rocked the all black which made him cool to myself (as a kid) for no other reason than he was more badass looking than the other Imperial troopers.
Modern incarnations vary to me... The POTF2 was a decent sculpt for its time, but they were prone to leaning forward and falling. Hasbro updated the legs to have knees, which was kind of cool (though kind of pointless at the time), and those same legs fit perfectly onto the POTJ "Imperial Officer", actually.
After that, the Saga figure was cool but his ****** lack of articulation on the arms, coupled with one arm strictly meant to pose on the belt, and a left arm with wrist articulation for absolutely no reason, really limited my appreciation of that figure.
Flash forward to the modern sculpt of the TIE Pilot, which is borderline super articulated (I'd 100% buy a resculpt of this figure, in bulk, if they gave it the SA treatment like the AT-AT Driver... Removable armor and helmet would be ideal as well, ala the Death Star Gunner), and I think they're the ultimate version of the character. I think the bodysuit's a little light, but in ANH the TIE Pilots suits were a hair lighter than their armor which is a pure black. Kind of weird, and I don't think Hasbro's caught the effect perfectly yet, but I think the Evolutions figure looks best.
I think the Saga TIE Pilot though, now is kind of like those crummy Arena Jedi from 2002... Having an SA sculpt, makes me appreciate the older figure a bit. THey blend in together well with the Evo figure. I'd like the chance to pick up a few of the Evo figure, perhaps a little darker in color on the suit though... barring a full-on resculpt, of course. I'd totally buy a ton of a SA resculpt on this one.
Cool figure though, and one of my favorites from the vintage line.
On the pistols, I prefer the new gun... Only because the vintage figure never held his gun well, and shared it with the Bespin Guard, whereas the blaster he's rocking these days is in the films and EU as an Imperial gun. I could've done with him gettin gthe Rebel Fleet Trooper-ish pistol too, or something like Tarkin's POTF2 pistol (which turned up in EU as an Imp blaster too, ironically, even though I think Hasbro made its design up themselves).
