I've been having a little more success now and got the hang of it...somewhat.
At first the lack of repair laser in xtended bothered me, so I would switch to easy and repair before switching back. However, about 2 hours and ~7 ships and ~7 million credits later I understood why. So many pilots bail out everywhere, especially in M4+'s and M3's that you just get so much money by selling ships. Not to mention all the time you waste repairing them...I got through a movie on netflix while repairing ships with a held key before I stopped and just sold at whatever % I got the ship at.
Skimmed through a few AAR's, stalked Roguey's X3TC site, and watched some tutorial playlist on youtube and I am good to go. Extra hard self imposed rules and all. Still haven't finished a complete campaign, but have gotten far in my Boron one until my computer started being angry at me. Switched over to my laptop and tried out xtended and well, I think I did decent. Going to start a fresh one on my laptop now and not going to be cheap with the repair laser. Thanks for the support guys. Time to enjoy this awesome game.
PS, haven't seen Kha'ak invasions yet, but the Bonehead pirates seem to enjoy mass assaulting Split territory. Split had to bring an M7 to defend one of their border territories due to the pirates bringing M6's to the party. Constant fighting and every time I pass by there are 5-6 Asp's and Scorpions laying around ready to be claimed.