Why do you identify strongly with a faction?

With every release - and inbetween - there are countless individual posts where people categorize themselves as "Imperial player", "Rebel player", "Scum&Villany player". Often with a complaint that they don't get something or that their faction is now stronger or weaker. Other say that players of a faction deserve a situation.

But why?

I argue that players often gravitate towards certain list and ship types, and that is independent of faction, I know I certainly do and so do the players around me. My examples will clearly expose my bias towards swarm- and acewing. It doesn't matter so much if I play a nimble ace with imps, with rebels or with scum. Chances are very high that you own ships of more than one factions, even if you only bought them for the upgrades in the beginning. And the barrier between them is extremely low.

In other games with factions the differences are much larger, and switching from one to abother is very difficult. I used to play Starcraft II and always chose random, so all three races. And the same skill got me very different ranking depending on race.

I just don't see skill barriers between factions in X-Wing. The differences between list types are huge within the same faction, in my opinion larger than between the same list types in different factions. To give an example: playing aces is quite similar even in different factions, while playing aces or alphastrike lists is very different. Or another example from another game: if you play control in WoW, you can do so with any race and faction, but it will be very different from playing a tank - again faction independent.

Now I admit I play most often Rebels, and aces (often nimble 35/35/30 builds) or swarms (5+ ships). The faction because it has the ships I like most, the types because they are the style of playing I like most. But that means I'd never call myself a "Rebel player" and fly ships I don't like just because the same faction has ships I do like. To give again some examples: 1) I don't stick to Miranda because she's good just because A-Wings are my favorites. 2) I don't fly JM5K because I dislike the ship. That does not mean I have to suddenly hate all other ships of S&V. The Fangfighter is amazing, and I'm really looking forward to a Guri/Talonbane/Fenn list.

It is really a mystery to me, but I seem to be the majoritye:minority! from what I've seen on the forums.

So my question is: why do you call yourself an "Imperial player", "Rebel player", or "Scum&Villany player"? Why do you identify more with a faction than a ship type?