So these characters actually just autorun, like as in NUMLOCK into the distance? Yikes that is odd.

I use interact with target mostly for having the slaves talk to vendors and npcs and from time to time the one or more of the slaves will go off into the distance and talk to a stale NPC I was talking to.

I am pretty aware that the targeting delay with the slaves can be at fault, but sometimes they clearly revert back to a NPC I have since stopped targeting a few times over (main talks to repairs, auctioneer, banker and now the slaves want to talk to the repair guy when I have the banker targeted) In instances at times the slaves give the 'is to far away' and they have a stale target.

At times I almost think this is related mechanically to the fear / loss of control targeting problem. Perhaps cleartarget and then assist is the thing to do for a while.