I would also like to see a hybrid operative/envoy class, but that's just because they didn't get the envoy right. Envoy was a great idea for a class, but its abilities need to be compared to the operative. Compare, for example, the envoy's disquise abilities to the operatives, or their hacking abilities. The envoy's secondary powers (hacking, disquise, medicine) needed to be on par with the operative's. A hybrid class that does that would be welcome.Huh? Hacking they're close to equally good at. They're actually better forgers. Medicine, IMO, they're better at, since all Operatives have is Field Treatment, which only works on you and costs Resolve. And Cunning Disguise is amazing. It's probably not as good as Master of Disguise, but it's better than Quick Disguise IMO.
Besides, all this seems more an argument for more/better Expertise Talents than a new Class.
Cunning disguise is dumb, because it took a paragraph of space in the class's description to create an ability that is no better than the +3 - +7 or so to your disguise you would get otherwise. A lot of the expertise talents are like that-- a waste of space on the page. Or consider altered bearing. vs. being able to cast disguise self as an extraordinary ability.
Nah, its like the write up of envoy was based in a less magical univers than the write up of the operative, where operatives create psychic mirror images and holograms vs. the envoy trading their intuition bonus for some ability that just a tweak to making a skill check.
That being said, yes, it would be better to just re-write the envoy, especially the expertise talents, but that is less likely than a hybrid envoy/operative.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the envoy, and can see that its improvisations can be good. I suspect that due to it being the face class and making a good captain it will be popular, but it really needed more operative style powers-- less trying to go mundane (as in vs. magic), more embracing the weird space fantasy aspect of starfinder.
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Cunning Disguise makes someone auto-fail vs. your Disguise. That's way better than a small bonus, because it eliminates the possibility of them rolling a 20 or some other high roll. It's a really wonderful safety net.
The other thing you're missing is that utility Operative Exploits have to compete with combative ones. Improvisations and Expertise Talents are both available and you need not trade away Improvisations for Expertise Talents.
Exploits are thus definitionally a greater investment and probably should be a little better. Some also have a level requirement, which is not true of any current Expertise Talents, and allows them to be more powerful.
Some additional Expertise Talents with level requirements or prerequisites (and a commensurate increase in power) would be good, but the current balance point is more complex than you're implying.
Cunning disguise is not better because when you use it, you do not know what the future will be. You are guessing. If you guess wrong, if no 20 was rolled, but instead, say, 2 15s were rolled, then you lose. It actually makes using disguise more bothersome and fraught with risk.
A better write up of cunning disguise would be to eliminate the sacrificing or your expertise die, and instead just saying that the first time an enemy would pierce your disguise with a perception check, you treat their check as though the rolled a natural 1 on the die. Now the envoy is just good at disguising and can mitigate bad luck.
In fact, that would have been a cool way to go with the envoy-- a charismatic rogue/leader with luck abilities. It fits the whole scoundrel image-- "Never tell me the odds."