I haven't exactly seen a power creep, but i do see more v-set pieces being used. Most of the time i would say that its out of boredom for something new. I personally play them a lot mainly because they really help my mandos but that about it for me. I have yet to play with or against many of the pieces, but it doesn't seem to be that big of a problem to me. I can take an entirely WOTC senate commando squad and beat plenty of people with it, many of them playing v-set pieces. There are a few overpowered pieces, but that is no different than the few that WOTC produced. Not all the pieces in the sets can be perfectly balanced. I think the designers did a good job.

Good responses by many people so far, so I won't rehash what they've said.

However, I was one of the designers of Kelborn, so I'll offer some input about him. From the very first conversations about "What should we do with V-Set 5?" we knew that we needed to give the Mandos some good help. Some kind of useful movement breaker or something, because they haven't been able to compete much at all up to this point. [Our other focus was on the Vong, but that's another story.] If you look at it, every faction has a piece or a few pieces which are "go-to" pieces for that faction.
--Rebels: Princess Leia (for a long time) and/or Luke RC. Oh, and Dodonna.
--Imperials: Thrawn/Mas, and now Pelleon.
--Republic: Doombot, along with several other combo options that are all very strong.
--Seps: Lancer, San, Whorm.
--NR: Ganner, Dodonna, Mara.
--Vong: Yammosk...but it was clear that they needed more.
--OR: Bastilla, Atton/Carth, and now Satele.
--Sith: At the time, just Revan and Atton, but we added Wyyrlok to increase their squad-building options.
--Mandos: ...um...Mandalore the Vindicated? Yes, he's good ("Triple Attack for 90dmg, baby!"), but he could never get into position to use his triple, so he was really gimped.

And so we intentionally set out to design a "go-to" piece for the Mandos. Not broken, but definitely under-costed and intentionally stacked with some useful Mando-specific tech. One of the problems with designing tech pieces is that they need to be cheap...and therefore they're fragile, and so they die easily. Either that, or the tech is tougher and survivable, which increases the cost and means that you can't fit much tech into your squad if you want to have viable damage output.

And so for Kelborn we basically said, "Let's start with the Mando Scout as a base" (read his Wookieepedia article to see why we did that)...and then we decided to make him Cunning rather than Opportunist, and then one of the designers had the (IMHO) brilliant idea of Resolnare, which would give the Mandos the movement-breaker that they so sorely lacked.

That was his base design...after that we experimented with various different options. We really wanted him to be able to move around with his "pod" of cloaked guys, without needing to rely on Mice for CE effectiveness...and that's where Relay Orders came from...but he also needed to benefit from CEs himself, and so we finally settled on giving him Coordinated Command, which was a great SA for Mandos, but unfortunately the only other piece with it (Cassus Fett) isn't usually effective, and so CoCo got on there too.

So is Kelborn undercosted? Yes. Is that accidental or is it a mistake? No and no.

The argument I've heard against power creep is that if one piece has one obvious exploit, it becomes balanced.
That's such a bad argument. "Dude, just bring shooters in against Jaina Solo/Mace Windu/Darth Zanna, you'll be fine!

In what universe do you people play in where everyone knows what everyone else is playing before the match starts?

And why is it, that if I want to contend against the cheese that is V-Set, I have to equal or surpass the cheese that's being used against me? How is that fun in any way? It wasn't fun when WotC did it, we all acknowledged it. So why, instead of using the golden opportunity we had to correct it, did we decide to embrace it to the fullest extent?

So your "summary" has one of the two parties as the clear idiot, being hardheaded and belligerent while the other party is the poor victim? And you create a new account specifically to make this post? I won't begin to list the huge number of things that make this post just trolling and not adding anything worthwhile to the discussion. If you think the conversation is "pointless", then don't get involved.

Power creep exists, and is a part of every game of those type (basically, games with regular expansions). That's how the game stays interesting. There will always be a few things that are the best, but if the same things become the best and then stay the best forever, the game gets really, really boring. The only way to keep it from getting boring is to either make counters to the best things or make new best things (or do both).

Power creep exists in every single collectible game (which is what this is, even without new product). It's a good thing.

It was absolutely fun when WotC did it, it kept the game fresh. I don't know who the "we" is that acknowledged anything, but don't speak for everyone.

If you think you can make a game with over 1000 pieces that is well balanced and still fun, with 120+ new pieces coming out every year, I'm truly and genuinely interested. I'll volunteer right here and now to be a playtester for that game. I'm looking forward to seeing your ideas.

Amazing. Any other time anyone attempts to defend the power creep of the V-Set, the argument's been, "Well, WotC did it and broke the game way more!"

Now suddenly you V-Set fans are all for breaking the game and idolize what WotC did?

No one has claimed to have all the answers, so take your anger elsewhere. What we're wanting is acknowledgement that there is a fundamental flaw with where the V-Set has taken the game, and steps to fixing it, rather than a belligerent (your word) and zealous defense of it.

Okay I just wanted to summarize your post. Good troll.

Yet, if you had read my post all the way through instead of quoting one specific part part of my argument you would have found that I already knew you'd say that, and that you only validated my argument. Cheers!

Power creep of some sort is necessary - otherwise new pieces would never be played. Ideally, it's as slow as possible. The number of WotC pieces that are still played regularly in competitive games, and the number of viable squad builds at the competitive tables are both testament that the power creep of the Vsets is pretty slow.

Okay, so just so I am clear on this, what you're saying is that smart, efficient, and well thought-out teams aren't what make the game fun or playable, but increased stats that render old pieces worthless, that makes the game fun. Interesting.

Absolutely. You want there to be parity. When there are only a few power pieces - they dominate and the game is unbalanced. When there are many 'power' pieces, none of them dominate and there is balance. That's what the game is like now. Of course, with so many 'power' pieces it makes it more obvious how weak WotC made the vast majority of their pieces. But the discrepancy in power was already there between the WotC power pieces and the WotC weak pieces.