Back to the main topic XD
I more or less agree with Jorgen here. In fact, I feel that the game may be TOO forgiving in terms of officers and such. The natural counter to that is building more academies, which you should do anyway. If it irks you to have unassigned commanders, you can imagine that they are occupied in training or low level administrative positions.
I am, however, 100% an RPer, so I can totally understand why people could want the possibility to avoid commanders in this situation.
So, after reading everything, I'd say my answer is:
Should fighters need commanders? Generally yes, within the confines of the mechanics Steve made. "Fighters" are actually pretty large and have a two digits crew in most cases, so having a commander, someone responsible for the ship, makes sense here
Could we have a toggable system where certain classes or sizes or whatever do not have a commander? (To roleplay automated crafts or whatever). I'm all for it if Steve is interested to code it.
But imo, it cannot be the default/only option, because the mechanics of Aurora imply that a fighter is a craft big enough and with enough crew that it generally makes sense to for it to have a commander.
I would not mind a more granular option for assigning commanders though.