well, someone else pointed out an important issue when it comes to leveling starbases: decision of whether the starbase gets fighting experience or not rests with the enemy. if he doesn't attack, your sb won't get experience and you can't do anything about it. in fact, with the multi firing banks, even your control over what your sb should attack is fairly limited. also you can't run to save an experienced unit, so I'm not so sure of how often the situation occurs that you even have sb with experience.
think about it: any player worth his creds will scout before and only attack, if he is reasonably certain he can beat it, especially with the lane disruption. so there are three possible outcomes: a) the enemy avoids the station and finds another path to attack you, b ) the enemy attacks with what he thinks is sufficient force and he destroys you or c) the enemy attacks with what he thinks is sufficient force and he fails for whatever reason or d) he attacks, but something unforseen forces him back. only in cases c and d would a starbase that gains experience even happen. so is this really going to happen that often? maybe, if you arrive in time to drive the enemy off. but proper scouting should go a long way of preventing nasty surprises.
that said, the idea has some merit. I definately would not flesh it out as much as with capships, so no abilities, no new stuff. but I could live with 'basic level', 'veteran crew' and 'elite crew'. each new level gives you a slight boost in stats (as with capships) and maybe an extra slot. I mean not that I think it really needs to be done, but linked with experience and just being two more anyway, it would be a nice touch to give experienced sbs some extra punch for a price. though realistically, that probably requires quite some reprogramming that it's likely out of the question at this point.
