[RERomine]

You do have to sell the entire formation to get points back. When you do that, you are selling the equipment and the crew.

Any change within a formation will cost points without anything in return, but you are keeping your crew and putting them equipping them differently. Because the equipment is different, their experience will take a hit, but it only seems to be in the range of a 10-15% drop.

As far as "downgrading", I don't believe the game recognizes the changes as such. To you, it might be a "downgrade", but to the game it's just a "change" and that change will cost you points.