Q: Is Friendly Fire an issue?

[thejeff]

What do you mean by a decent choice?

I don't know if I've ever used Fire & Flee, the only place "flee" is used that I can think of.
The only difference I've seen is that Rout gets a defense penalty and the others don't.

And firing over the tops of your front line has plenty of historical precedent. There's much less for firing into melee once the lines have engaged, which is the current Dominions standard.