Spoilers in this area contradicting the other guy's ranting
first of all, it takes impule like 5 frekin mins. to assemble, which gets old after awhile (even if they have shortened it).
it doesn't really take Impulse 5 min. to assemble, takes about 23 seconds...unless you're talking about epi 1 where other things are going on at the same time interupting the whole thing which may have made a nice 5 min. takes Strike about 33 seconds...oh, and reason it gets old is cuz Impulse gets a lot more battles than Strike'll get...if Strike got more battles in SEED, it'd get old too.
Also, have you ever noticed how Shinn kills EA Windams (or should i say Impulse fodder) so easily? Its like he sees em and then shoots em, and its not even hard for him and they never shoot back. I HATE THAT!!! It was never like that for Kira and the guys in Seed (except for providence, but that was understandable).
Ever realize that Shinn and Athrun were trained by ZAFT before they went into battle for the first time? Kira could only rely on himself to train (but he got hella good), if you're talking about epi 16, he hadn't reprogramed his Strike yet. and in other cases, AA had all the reinforcements and stuff before Kira started to pilot Freedom. but mostly because Strike and Kira pretty much only fought the 4 stolen MSes.
Plus, Shinn and Athrun are the only ones who ever hit anything, Luna and Ray just sit there missing, and it really is sooooooo predictable and boring to watch.
Lunamaria and Rey are only seen shooting, never hitting cuz it is assumed to hit, and Zakus aren't exactly made for Earth battles so they go help protect the ship (as you may know, it's hard to hit all the enemy missiles, MSes, etc. from one point no?). The only time they show them missing is in one of those "critical states" where they make it hit Minerva to purposely deal some damage or put them in danger like in epi 28
I hope Shinn ends up getting blown up by a Windam (it would make my day)
actually, Neo(Mwu) pilots Windam and joins AA later on, besides, i doubt a mere Windam (even with Mwu's skills) can take out Destiny...only ones that'd be able to land a hit on Shinn in Destiny is Kira(Nu-Freedom) and Athrun(Nu-Justice) (did the original names cuz there's still some debate on what they're called)