With a little modding fighters are quite survivable into the late game. I've added small phased shields to go with the small standard shields. Apparently 'phased' shields have no effect on units but the higher shield points are still effective. I've also increased the size/range of fighter weapons slightly. They do suffer losses unless you completely out-class your opponent(s). That's the nature of fighters. If it were like Battlestar Galactica where none of the 'good guys' get killed that would be unbalanced, too.
And fighters are supposed to operate in Groups, remember. MM has changed the default group size to 10, up from 5, but I don't think even that is large enough. I use a default group size of 20 and find Groups of 20 fighters to be fairly dangerous. Boosting that a bit higher would start to reduce flexibility because you'd have so few Groups in any given tactical situation but it might be appropriate depending on what you are up against.
[ June 17, 2002, 21:47: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]