I'm not trying to shit on a whole half of the playerbase or anything btw, I'm genuinely not. I've played Rebels for almost as long as I have Combine characters.
But Rebels have always been allowed to exist in their own ecosystem, warts and all, because it was literally too exhausting and tiring to try and change things for them. You were never going to get people who enjoyed script-playing to change that, and they sure as hell weren't going to take the idea they weren't playing characters on the chin.
So it was just easier to ignore or sort of half-exclude them instead.
And, idk, I think there's so much potential here - a genuine ability to change things in the same way Helix did, just without having to use force (even if that force did help tbh).