This just came up in another thread so I thought I'd do a quick rundown. And I'll probably make at least one mistake, which swinefeld will helpfully correct as soon as he sees it.

Unique:
Each persona has a key 'name' that determines when two characters count as the same persona for the purposes of Unique. I've never seen the complete list, but it's pretty obvious. "Luke" for Luke Skywalker, etc. If a version of the character doesn't have the key part, then Unique will say who it counts as. For example, on General Solo doesn't have "Han" in the name so on the card it says: Unique [Counts as Han Solo]. On Uniques, the phrase "Counts as X" only means the characters count as the same persona for the purposes of Unique. It doesn't do anything to the character's name. On a few characters (e.g. Chewie and Son of Skywalker), it says Unique [Counts as a character named X]. In those cases, the character counts as having the given name in addition to having the regular name.

(out of time... will come back to address species, Troopers, Pilots, and Black Sun lader)