As long as the AI gives a proper challenge on the higher difficulties i don't see why it matters how "smart" it is. It will still be fun to those who like co-op and who don't need the pride of winning over other players.
If you aren't limiting yourself, then once you have good fast early expansion down, there isn't really any challenge at all against nearly any AI: a starbase at each choke point will melt nearly any AI fleet. The game gains a LOT more depth when you have to actually use good strategy to win - once you know how to beat AI, there's very little challenge to it anymore.
Playing against humans instead of robots makes the game much more interesting and unpredictable. (Much, much harder, unfortunately, but also more interesting)
If/when you've mastered beating robots, please don't completely dismiss the possibility of playing pvp to add a new dimension to the game. The whole game gets much deeper 
(note I'm not saying "you're too scared to handle humans", I'm saying "humans make the game much more interesting") If beating bots gets boring, at least think about pvp.
