I have also encountered some weirdness with regards to highly aggressive officers behaving like they're timid for weird reasons. I don't think i have seen the behavior on less than aggressive officers so it might be an overflow/underflow/undefined range bug.
I don't have a save but can definitely corroborate that its happening as of the second most recent patch.
Other specific issues i have are: Aggressive Officers not understanding enemy threat range/self engagement range. They will strafe into enemy engagement range when on an engage or eliminate order and get what looks like "threat locked" where they constantly bounce around between two enemy threats and are unsure of what to do when faced with it. This is very noticable with front shield front weapon ships like the Brawler(fit long or short range)
E.G. I had an Reckless officer in a LP Brawler currently engaging a XIV enforcer that i told to go eliminate a target that was behind them.(So they were directly in a line between the XIV enforcer and the target) and the brawler, despite having like 230 speed, refused to disengage with the enforcer. It would turn away to make like it was going to eliminate the target behind him but receive a bit of kinetic fire and immediately turn towards the target and hold position and start the strafe dance (doing so until the enforcer was between it and the target i wanted it to kill)
I think that separate issue might be related to the combination of fixed front shields and fixed forward guns as (Shoot thing in range) and (center shields on incoming damage) are likely over-rides to general order behavior like moving.