It seems like its always better to have a decent ship on both ends of the link, if only to get 2 ships with the player combat skills/counting as an officer for buffs.
If a player wants to take advantage of frequent switching to do amazing maneuvers/coordinated flanking maneuvers etc, then they want to use smaller ships and not have the delay: less DP being boosted but they are getting more benefit from the skill because 2 ships are getting human piloting. If they want to just pilot a Radiant, then they can gave 2 battleships with full player skills which is more DP being boosted - but only 1 of the ships is getting the player piloting. Trying to pilot both battleships is possible for a maximum of both, but the delay makes it less optimal (which is good!).
Question (and apologies if this has been asked before, I can't remember): Does the ship the player is not piloting get the personality of the fleet doctrine/retain orders? And do orders placed on it persist from switching in and out? I think the situation that would make me the most sad would be if I were trying to do a 2 ship flanking maneuver and the other ship kept retreating from the target, so I can see myself giving both ships engage or eliminate orders then switch between them repeatedly.