Regarding new editions and so on: what Psion said.
I'm the GM of a fairly long-running SW campaign, so I've had many opportunity to compare classes in various situations. My PCs are a Jedi Guardian, a Noble/Force Adept, a Scoundrel, and a Soldier/Starfighter Ace.
Scout: We haven't had one of these, but it looks like a fair balance between combat and non-combat roles, though I'm a bit doubtful about the usefulness of Extreme Effort and Heart.
Soldier: Powerful, flexible combat class, the best choice for pilots. Can be a bit one-dimensional and out of their depth in social situations especially. A good choice all the way to 20th, though many players might prefer to specialise with a PrC - with the rarity of ranged-combat feats, soldiers can be pushed into being melee-monsters by default.
Noble: Great in a campaign with lots of social encounters (despite missing Bluff and Gather Info as class skills), and occasionally useful elsewhere. High-level Favour checks, etc can be a real GM headache. The noble in our game saved everyone's butt with a well-chosen Favour check last session. Weak in combat. Multiclassing might be useful, to give them some more options - taking Soldier (the pilot route) or Force Adept could be worthwhile.
Fringer: Can't comment on this one, since nobody's been tempted by them in my campaign.
Force Adept: Our FA has proven very capable in combat (especially with the Force techniques from the Hero's Guide) after a shaky start. Good selection of skills and a couple of neat abilities make it a varied, interesting and flexible class, all the way through. Also good for multiclassing, since once you've got Control, Sense and Alter, you can go back to another class and still keep improving your Force powers with skill points from Scoundrel or Scout or whatever. Some of the high-level abilities may be too tempting to give up though.
Scoundrel: Very good class, will tend to be your skill specialist. The Precise Attack and Lucky class abilities, plus the bonus feats, can make them surprisingly effective combatants. Very high-level Scoundrels with high Int can really start to break the skill DC system. Taking a level or two of Scoundrel as a multiclass can be tempting for anyone, just to beef up their skills a bit.
Tech Spec: Very weak, both in and out of combat. Doesn't even have blaster pistol proficiency. The player of our Scoundrel PC originally considered one of these, but eventually decided that the extra skill points of the Scoundrel let him do the techie character concept better than Tech Spec did - kind of a sad state of affairs.
Jedi Guardian: They don't get any better in melee than this. A cleverly built JG can be an absolute untouchable juggernaut. Tends to be one-dimensional though, cos they have to spend so many of their limited skill points on force powers.
Jedi Consular: Trades a bit of the offensive power of the JG for some extra skills, but many of the same comments apply.
Bear in mind, though, because of the way in which BABs quickly outstrip Defense bonuses and the fact that any shmuck can get their hands on a 3d8 weapon with minimal effort means that the difference between combat characters and non-combat characters is actually not that big. Jedi are the massive exception though.
