FWIW as an Alliance player and therefore technically neutral, I can confirm a lot of what the Imperials are saying regarding their op. An op which I have inspected quite thoroughly and find fair and reasonable.
Some targets are public, and open, and to be undermined straight away.
Some are not.
The cries from Hudson and Winters for everyone to "stop while we figure this out" are patently ridiculous. When you call the thunder, the Hurricane does not have to wait. It's not as if the Federation has never taken advantage of bugs, like, you know, a UI fault last October...
Lastly. As someone who has played the BGS a few years now... I've witnessed what I refer to as "The Fed Rando Brigade". It is commonly accepted, that the Federation has the largest amounts of lowest common denominator players, that have picked the faction because it's the federation, and will blindly do things. These include Wars, AX (because rank grinders) and yeah, powerplay.