I always wondered what people were complaining about with the whole lightsaber bug, until I leveled a new Sith Assassin to 50, using Ashara most of the way.
Up until then, I had noticed how Nadia, Xalex, Kira, etc., would leave their lightsaber models around after dismissing them, mounting a speeder, or other situation. That wasn't so rough, in my opinion. Now, when Ashara would place her two sabers at her waist, and they didn't shut off, *that* was a huge problem for me.
Not even from the immersion point-of-view (although, it's pretty darn funny to watch her slice and dice herself while using the companion dance emote, heh), but from an audio point of view. I haven't been truly annoyed by this game in a long time, but the hum from those stupid sabers drove me nuts! So much so that I eventually would disarm her if I wasn't fighting.
Is it a 'minor' bug? Well, yeah, when compared to client crashes, bugged missions, and other things, but it is still darn annoying and affects half of the classes' companions (lucky non-Force user characters. At least 4 of my characters don't have to put up with it, heh).
Can we use another companion? Sure. Can we use the workarounds discussed in this thread? Absolutely. Should we really have to, after this bug has been around for so long? Nope, no we really shouldn't.