I don't think the wings on the fighters is really a problem at all. Alot just depends on your point of view on technology and such.
For instance, I'm assuming that the long dart shaped fighters with the stubby wings and tail fins is an Imperial Rampart fighter.
On the Rampart fighters the stubby wings and tail fins can serve amny purposes, including serving as ;
locations for additional planar sensors,
external weapon mount racks,
locations for maneuvering thrusters
Specifically, although the bulbous nose on the fighter probably might house a large search and fire control radar for detecting contacts in fornt of the fighter, the tail and wing surfaces could house a planar arrays to search above, below and to the sides of the craft. This could potentially be of greater importance on a space vehcile than on an aircraft because in space (depending on how you interpret/envision space travel) there probably isn't any real up or down (as opposed to aircraft operating planet side) and as such targets may potentially be operating at right angles to you rather than in the same (or a similar) plane to you.
As far as mounting weapons like missiles on stub wings like appendages, there could potentially be some benefit in doing so rather than mounting them internally. For instance, it kind seems that it could be fairly easy to run out your ordnance on a grav cart on quickly attach them fairly easily to the stub wings, while work is ongoing on refueling or maintaining the rest of the craft, as opposed to having to more carefully load a missile into an internal bay, or attaching it directly to (or under) the craft. Additionally if an external missile misfires or gets damaged, it may be possible that it might do less damage to the craft carrying it, if its externally mounted rather than internally mounted or if its directly mounted to the craft. And by externally mounting them it may be possible to fit larger or less standard sized pieces under the stub wings than if the craft had an internal bay, etc. And since there is no resistance in space, there would likely be less drawbacks than there are for externally mounting missiles on aircraft (such as the added air drag that external ordnace on aircraft produce).
Finally, when you look at aircraft like the BAe Harrier and/or space craft like the current Space Shuttle you will notice relatively small thruster ports for adjusting the attitude of the craft. From physics I believe that the farther you locate those small thrusters from the centroid of the craft the more effective they should be at changing a craft's attitude. Thus, I'd suspect that if you were to use the stub wings and fins on one of these fighters to locate these thrusters they would be more effective especially for fine maneuevering (such as launching and recovery) etc. By locating maneuvering thrusters capable of operating in opposite directions at opposite ends (or sides) of the craft I believe that you could get the craft to roll, pitch, and yaw fairly effeciently.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
Regards
PF
