Alliance-Union can be hit or miss, depending on what sort of stories you like. (Technically, Faded Sun, Chanur, and the Morgaine cycle are part of A-U.) Heavy Time and Hellburner have some very dated slang (you can tell it was written in the 80s), and the politics are little guys vs megacorp. A lot of them are more psychology/anthropology-type stories, like 40000 in Gehenna, which explores some interesting human cultural development and evolution themes. Don't read the wikipedia, the first sentence is a spoiler. The Merchanter novels (Finity's End, etc) are politics-heavy following the end of the Company Wars. Rimrunners stars Bet Yeager, who's a kick-ass broad.

Baen Covers are usually also hideous and bizarre, with a certain characteristic art style, though that's changing a *little* bit recently. Darkship Thieves has a pretty cool cover, even if the inside text has problems.