So, experienced captains beat inexperienced captains. Ship loadouts are also very important- at close range a junker has a very clear advantage over a pyramidion. News at 11.
That being said, you don't need thousands of matches and dozens of achievements under your belt to understand how to play the game- I've played a fair bit, and around 60% of what I know about playing the game I learned in the first three days of playing, by reading guides on the forums (steam guides are entertaining, but outdated). The other 30% I learned a few weeks in by pestering more experienced players (special thanks to my senior ducks, especially sunderland for parkour tips). A lot of newer players I've seen have been deaf and mute, which is kind of depressing 
There's so much awesome information out there, and most veterans are perfectly willing to answer questions.
That is true. Yet I take an example from my own self. I know all loadouts on an engineer, and I honestly don't care what they bring (I mean DynaBuff&Pipe vs Mallet/Spanner or Extinguisher vs Spray and not some other crazy loadouts). There are sometimes times I want to be sure that gunners got Incendiary, Burst, Heatsink or Lesmok to go with certain weapons, but it still doesn't happen that often and is pretty fast to check or comment. I can't kick players off my ship, so I'm not gonna scream into mic for half an hour like some captains do in lobbies for players to be responsive.
I'll check if my crew got Spyglasses, which they usually do. Takes about 10 seconds. Checking enemy and allied ship loadouts takes another 10 seconds. If I'll be so inclined, another 10 seconds to check other captains' skill loadouts.
Then I can quickly explain the ship attack strategy, which is usually something simple like we'll use broadside guns for close combat, or attack the balloon, etc. Gunner will go there and Enginner there. But then again, I still can't kick players if they're clueless, so it doesn't matter to check if they're responsive. I'll have to repeat all that over again at the actual start of the match anyway. And usually there's no super masterplan anyway, just shoot guns that are pointed towards the enemy. If something else comes up, I can say it during the match.
My ship loadouts are already all set predetermined in different configurations from my practice mode. I don't see why you'd want to change all your guns right before a match unless it was a gunner request, etc. Rarely happens, but alright, that can take a minute.
So, what I don't get here... why do some captains take over 10 minutes to actually ready up under the guise of planning? They're not invading a country or playing with people who will be particularly responsive to their super ingenious plan (trust me, the smarter your plan sounds in your head, the harder it will be to execute with players you are pugging with).
The only reason I can see is if someone is WANTED and doesn't want to fly on non-optimized ship... or otherwise a captain that just hates to lose so much that he'll ragequit before start of the match if not everything is up to his control issues. Which is okay for a person to have, but it shouldn't be an advice.
The picture is pretty much geared towards me since I usually want to get that match going because I want to play. Yet it falls on relatively unresponsive ears. I can even take AI crew unless it's a scary match. What I am missing here so much that I must want to do?
