The Wing Commander series was a sequence of missions that you, as a new flight cadet, flew through. It even had a semi-dynamic campaign, depending on whether or not you successfully completed missions. They also created a spinoff in the universe, called Privateer. While Privateer did have a storyline (which was bugged in my version of the game), it was a more open-ended, sandbox game where you could do trading, pirating, or be a mercenary.
And yes, Privateer 2 did star Clive Owen. I remember when I first saw a movie preview with him in it (heck, probably King Arthur), and I was reminded that I first saw him in a video game!
As for the "strategy," I don't really remember the WC nor TIE FIghter games really being a whole heck of a lot more different than "point and fire." The only exceptions of course being you sometimes had to focus on a group of ships (torpedo ships and bombers) from taking out your capital ships.