Find an example in canon that there are any used by Starfleet as full crewmembers.

Everything we have, from the hard canon shows and movies, to the STO canon, says they are. You can't just declare some Holograms non-sentient because it's convenient for your desire for a Fed Carrier.

We don't need Holographic pilots, if they are operated like drones. We have them today in modern times that can fly hundred, if not thousands of miles and destroy targets or spy on enemy troops. Who needs Holograms, again? Why is this an issue?

Then you still have the ethical issues of creating an artificial intelligence to fight, kill and/or die for you - even if it doesn't have a "body" aside from the craft it pilots. (e.g. VOY "Warhead")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwKnvRPIrl0

DS9 clip. Been so long since I watched I didnt realize they actually called the little fed ships fighters.

No one doubted that, but the point is that these "fighters" are actually really huge. The better term would be a fighter-bomber or even corvette, since the Peregrine is a converted civilian mid-range courier vessel and packs quite a punch for it's "size".

I couldn't watch the scene with sound, but I think that they only used them in this instance because they relied on the enemy not to fire at the P's to avoid friendly fire because they flew in such a tight formation (if my memory is wrong please correct me ). Once the Cardassians do engage they pick the fighters off rather quickly.

If you could order a Peregrine wing to warp in, strike hard/disable a ship and warp out again would be a cool ability, though. But leaving them in the open picked by a few volleys or FAW's would be meh.

EDIT:

What about a form of "Fleet Support" vessel? It features Sci and Eng heavy slots to support other ships, a special form of non-blockadable subspace communication to call in attack fighter wings from the flanks or behind the enemy to strike one hard attack run and warp out again (those can be intercepted, of course) and moderate weapon slots.

Did you ever play with a remote control car as a kid?

yES. aND THE LOSS OF LIFE INVOLVED IN THAT FIASCO WAS TOO MUCH.

It's not that you had to decide whether the hologram was sentient or not. It was one hologram trying to tell you that the other hologram, the Vulcan one, was limited in it's capacity to really act beyond the confines of it's/her program. Hell, when you even question it/her with anything that doesn't involve fulfilling her programming of being a Vulcan Love Slave, it/she gets upset. The hologram that you needed to get her program from was trying to impress upon you that, even though their "emotions" are just simple programming to us, it's real to them, and he wanted to make sure that you and the Ferengi you were trying to get the program for, would treat the hologram right.


Except that's not how it worked in the shows at all.
The declaration of an individual photonic's, or android's, sentience was handled seemingly on a case-by-case basis. Because the norm, as it was pointed out more often than not, was that the holograms were not sentient.
Yes, they were complex creations that seemingly mimicked personality and emotion. But, that's all part of their programming. Most holograms can only act within the boundaries of that programming and can't really expand beyond that.
You're holding up the relatively small handful of exceptions to the norm, trying to say, "No see, THIS is what's normal". It's not. Most of those holograms weren't artificially intelligent, just incredibly well programmed.
You gotta understand: for the most part, these holograms, the DOffs specifically, are little more than advanced tools. They have programming that they strive to fulfill, because that is what they do. They don't ask the questions we do, like, "why are we here". They already have the answer, because that is literally how they were made. EMH? "Be a doctor!" ESH? "Intruder on Deck 12!" So on and so forth.
Why are you surprised that the computers of a player captain's replicators can manufacture these things? I mean, they're essentially what you get when you fire up the holodecks. Personally, I think it's a nice touch that you have to shore up the proper amount of CXP before earning the awesome ability to even create these kinds of DOffs. Like, Starfleet says, "Nope you're too much of a greenhorn to handle the responsibility of replicating photonic officers. Come back when yer ready, fish."
As Bulldog, who I quoted earlier pointed out, the Doctor only achieved his sentience partly because of his unusually long operating time. Could that happen to any of these other lowly photonics? Who knows? I like to think that is the case with the photonic BOffs you can acquire. STO itself seems to handle this in a very elegant manner, where while acknowledging that photonics were generally just advanced tools used for specialized situations, they had started showing the propensity for developing their own individual personalities. So rather than take the risk of looking like monsters, Starfleet has seemingly made it much easier for holograms in general to get around and to serve, what with installing emitters throughout a starship and mass manufacturing mobile hologram emitters.
I think you're making a bit too much of a deal out of this, Katic.

The simple solution of course is to make a fighter that doesn't mind being blown up.

Better yet, a bomb that WANTS to go off!

Oh, wait... that might not work so well....

There are also ethical considerations (that the Federation would take into account but which we as players generally might not care about) regarding the purposeful 'programming' of an AI. It could in some senses be considered mind control which the Feds would have an utter freakout over.

Yes, I know that this is discussion of fictional technologies in a fictional game. Part and parcel of science fiction is considering the implications of technology in new and novel ways. As an example, if Cryptic says that all fighters released by carriers are piloted by specially-programmed holographic pilots, you're not going to find me saying 'OMG SLAVERY! MIND CONTROL! EEEEVIL!' Instead, I'll be saying, 'Interesting perspective. Keeping in mind this is a fictional setting, what are the moral and ethical consequences of such a decision? What events could have lead up to that decision? What are the social impacts of it?' And so on.