Actually the earth fighters make a wonderful design from a real physics standpoint, since each engine is not in the center but on the outermost part of each wing, it enables the ships to spin quickly in place which would be much harder with central engines. And why is a ship that has an X design a ripoff. They neither fly nor perform anything like an Xwing. Thats like saying a Hellcat is a ripoff of a modern figther since it has a delta wing design. There are only so many ways to make realistic figthers and of course they will overlap some. Does a cop movie rip off other cop movies when it has two cops, one playing good cop, the other bad cop? There isn't endless variety in the world, it's what you do with material you have. For crying out loud, WC has the most unoriginal idea ever. But it was how it was done that sets it apart, not the idea itself.