There is a careful balance between giving the individual players control, and allowing the marshal to do what they're supposed to do, which includes making sure that the army is prepared and ready for battle. Personally, I think that the system that we have works pretty well.
The majority of the time, the only thing a marshal formation affects is the row in which your troops line up. You have to get to the much more advanced settings before you start affecting things like formation, retreat settings, etc. (From what I've seen, those are rarely used.) And I personally appreciate that there are marshal settings to catch me if I forget to update my settings. I know that I've forgotten to change something, and wound up as the only infantry on Front. And not just once.
So yes, while I agree that characters should not be turned into travel bots, we should also make playing the game easy and friendly for casual players. (How often do you really want to not line up where the marshal wants you to line up? I would think that most of the time people are out of formation, it's an accident and not intentional.) This means a balance between automation of certain things like formations and line settings, while also allowing personal choice with nobles be able to choose their own.
While we may not be tactical military geniuses, and legendary leaders of men, we play characters who are. We shouldn't have to do *everything* ourselves.
