I'll grant you the main point there, but they're really more 1995. There is, in fact, a fire and forget mode. To use this mode, keep your reticle on target until a lock is achieved before releasing the weapon. In this mode, the missile guides itself to the target so you don't need to manually guide it. It will do a popup when close to the target and strike down into the target's (presumably) thinner top armor. As a consequence, you will frequently kill the target's turret in this mode, so you might still want to use the manual mode to get a chassis hit, etc.
More on the "1995"'ness of this in a moment...</font>