To catch you up on upcoming changes: T4 is no longer in Veteran, only Legendary.
The Good:
- Gap between T4 & T5 is much smaller than T3 & T4
- Veteran will be a much more even playing field
- Will most likely greatly reduce legendary que times
- May improve legendary matchmaking
The Bad:
- Will be much harder to level up T4 ships, as getting high scores will be harder in legendary
- Will also be harder to level T4 ships, as you will only be able to get Battle Bonus in one mode instead of two
- Going from flying T3s to being up against T5s is a huge huge jump
- Players just out of T3 will be introduced to the merciless seal clubbing of certain elite groups
- Some T5 modules greatly outclass T4 modules of the same type
Overall:
I think the real thing to improve here is general module balance within the T4/T5 bracket. The big problem here is players fresh out of T3 going up against elite T5 groups, and he reason elite groups stomp so well is that they typically take advantage of the most overpowered stragies in the game, which are just exacerbated by access to T5 modules. Good change, there are definitely tradeoffs made here, but overall net positive.