We can't find anything that says regular soldiers in star-wars would carry parachutes. So unless we found them, they won't go in.

parachutes are really useful in BF2 and 2142, they save you a lot of time when you'd otherwise have to use the stairs.

However, it ruins immersion a little, stormtroopers dont run around with parachutes  to jump off tall buildings with.
Even Tie and xwing pilots dont have them as they usually eject in space.

The best alternative would be magnetic grapnels, that stormies on the deathstar carried for no good reason.

''Its over. Angel won.''   RSF Gurd

Much of the tech in First Strike is not seen in the movies but is taken from what is known as the expanded universe, ir stories and games set in the same time frame that have expanded on the original movies.

Jetpacks. Fun, sure, but even in Star Wars they would have had a limited flight time so if they went back in I'd be looking at reducing the amount of flight time and removing it's ability to 'refuel' by itself. I'd probably make the flight time so low that you wouldn't even make it up Null's largest mountains

The main reason for removal though is that it proved to be detrimental to gameplay. You all spent more time teamkilling each other to get the jetpack or camping the area it was found in that it proved to be better for everyone if we just removed it. If you want to blame anyone Duke for getting rid of it then blame yourself. Hypocrisy (hypocricy?) doesn't come into play at any point. As has been said time and time again, FS is about making a game that is as lore accurate as possible and maintaining a style of play that ensures the action happens quickly in order to keep the game moving. Fighting over a kit completely negates that.

Bite my shiny metal Tie Fighter!