Changing targets from star to star is obviously a major problem for a single FOCAL probe, so we have to assume a future where the cost of building such probes comes down enough for us to assign a probe to each system we want to investigate closely. Dr. Maccone favors the idea as a precursor study before any probe being sent to such a star, but as you point out, FOCAL could also be used for distant targets like Andromeda.

Ref. Thomas and others with regard to Alpha Centauri: of course, open door, it would only be worthwhile to aim such a telescope at AC once it was confirmed by less ambitious instruments that there was something really (REALLY) interesting to look at, and those other instruments may actually come up with other even more fascinating targets.
However, I think I understood that such a gravitational focus telescope would have to be moved around quite a bit in order to aim it at some other target, depending of course on the (angular) difference in position. This might make it a rather cumbersome instrument to use for relatively nearby target stars.
Wouldn’t it be much more feasible and worthwhile to use such a gravitational focus telescope for a relatively distant and compact group of targets, such as e.g. (terrestrial) planet searches in the Andromeda galaxy, or even the Virgo cluster?

I wanna see cute, fuzzy and blue colored Alpha Centaurian beings goin at it freestyle in the streets of their vesion of a New York city traffic snarl (the charnage)! Oh, and the astronomy would be good too. :)