Everyone that played seemed to have a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun running it! No crazy problems with the rules themselves. I found a few spots where I will need to make some clarifications in the text before final printing, so I guess we got lucky we missed the deadline for the con?
Having simplified down to one major table to reference during game play really sped thing up. Shields are working how I envisioned, and even boarding actions worked out quickly... having resolved in about 2-3 rounds of game play.
I will say boarding actions are still a bit cumbersome - I might toy with an optional rule of resolving the entire boarding sequence when it happens and get control of a ship immediately, but we'll see. I want to get more player feedback on it before I go tinkering now.