This is why I wrote elsewhere that Command & Control 3 and Operations Center hullmod on the flagship are useful for carrier fleets, mainly to overcome this (silly or stupid) limitation, until they need to kill a battlestation, then carriers charge and die. It would be so nice if AI carriers just sent fighters to kill things while remaining in the backline.
Currently, without Fighter Strike micromanagement, having AI-controlled carriers is useful only if the flagship is a frontline combatant. Otherwise, if you are a backline unit, the escort gets wasted.
Fighters would be more useful if they swarmed against enemies by default. Leave escort by default to designated support fighters like Xyphos. Everything else should attack enemies by default.