Going back to the Mace for a moment, the dumbfire edition worked just fine. Terrific for capship killing. Starting WC4, the missile became remote detonated instead of contact. It just seems to me to be a waste of money, firing a slow moving tactical nuke at an approaching squadron, only to have them recognize it, and split up to leave the blast radius. When it gets set off, what do you kill? Potentially, zip. Likewise, if fired at a capship or installation, if you don't set it off just right, the warhead smack into the side, shattering the missile, and it doesn't even detonate or do any significant damage. Money wasted again.
Dumb firing the missile seems to be a better deployment of the missile. Or, perhaps this compromise: a modified IMREC targeting system, programmed to only lock onto capships. By default, detonation is set for impact. If fired dumb, then remote detonation becomes an option, as long as the missle doesn't have a lock-on signal.
Heck, the only real success I had with nuking fighters was when I set one off in Seether's face at point blank.