These books have a tendency to flip into gear after spending some time on wheel spinny world building, but this one is definitely taking a little longer to turn over. Sure, Luke and Leia have basically switched places now, and Threepio and Artoo are just jumping from one spaceship to the next, but still! Go faster, book!
System Mastery 
The idea of Dr whomever’s features changing to be more like Calista sounds like it was ripped from Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light novel – wherein, a select group of people transferred their consciousness to other bodies but over time those new bodies would re-shape themselves towards the original person. So even if a man became a woman, or vice versa, after a time other people would be able to recognize them for who they really are.