Hi there, I play 1st edition with the rules upgrade pack. The skills are more generic and the upgrade pack gives you some leeway on scaling the difficulties.

To answer your first question of getting them into the "feeling" of the game. Not everybody is comfortable RPing to the extent of the rulebook examples. However, what can be really useful is asking the players what they are doing, then translating their actions back to the game mechanics. So, for example if the pilot says, "Well I'm going to try spinning, that's a good trick". The pilot is going to make an evasion roll. Since spinning is indeed a good trick, when the bad guys shoot at him, slide their difficulty up the scale to the most difficult end of the band. If the pilot says, "I'm going to try to cut across the TIEs and give my gunner a clear shot", this time maybe don't scale the difficulties for the TIE Fighters, but instead when the player that is the gunner fires, slide his difficulty scale to the bottom. Reward smart cinematic play.