I know these have been mentioned but I just want to keep these on the psidar.

1.  The iconus guardian still spams its shield projection outside of battle.

2.  Aeria drone hosts controlled by the AI still carry around squadrons of mines without deploying them (this was fixed in Diplomacy, I believe).

For this I will offer a suggestion:

AI-controlled Aeria's don't make mines by default.  However, once one enters a gravity well or joins a fleet, it will look to see if any other Aerias have mines.  If not, it will scrap one fighter or bomber squadron to make mines but will never have more than one squadron (maybe?).  Otherwise, it won't.

The aeria will deploy mines in every grav well, but no more than 3 times to save money.  (The number is just a suggestion, and there could be better logic to use).

I often see Aeria's scout my gravity wells with mines in tow, but not deploy them. If it actually mined my grav wells, that could give me a little challenge to overcome.  Otherwise, Aerias shouldn't be used by the AI for scouting.  Defense vessels would be fine b/c I've seen TEC and Vasari scout with flak; they're cheap and durable and don't use anti-matter. 

If there isn't some way to fix the Aeria/mine issue, then I would ask for a mine-off option.