Sure the Mirak are really bad, good guys. The Federation only deals with them because they already have so many enemies on their border. The Mirak deal in missiles lots of missiles. Not only do they carry more missiles on average than other races they can also control twice as many. The Mirak Actually invented their fighter to carry even more missiles in battle.
Fighters can be a strong possible component to a fleet.
The tactics you use to deploy them will be more important. Fighters are fragile craft and can be wiped out quickly if used unsupported. The interface for the most part is the same. I think it was very functional in the first game. We have added extra features like fleet control, on the fly shuttle conversion and tractor rotation to the list of new features to the interface.