Modeling Crew on My Raiders?

I've been considering how best to model the crew of The Kabal of the Vashta Nerada's* transports. Just throwing some thoughts into the aether, seeing if anything catches.

From GW's Website, without permission

The raider (and ravager) sprues come with a number of Kabalites, meant to be stationed on the vehicle itself. But is that how I want to use them? After all, they could make valuable contributions to their Archon's cause if inducted into the infantry forces.

See, I probably want a steersman (the dude at the aft) for all my raiders. But what about the gunner? Or the passengers?

As above

I'm NOT including the gunner in my first two venoms. I'm going to use some cabling from Dragon Forge in order to hook up the splinter cannon to the craft itself, so that the pilots are controlling it. Why? Well, I don't really use Wyches. The only Cult-themed units in my army are Reaver-derived (i.e., Reavers, Fighter, Bomber), and adding Wyches there would really screw up my aesthetic.

So, I've established a gunner-less precedent. But what about my raiders? I don't like the cabling idea so much for the dark lances, but I'm not crazy about adding a gunner that restricts how I can move the turret and could be used to flesh out my kabalite troops!

So what does the internet think rolling (skimming?) without a gunner is a good idea? What do people think of the minimal-crew aesthetic?

As I'm writing this, I'm having other ideas as well. Could a Sslyth work as a pilot? Does anyone with the model know if it would even fit? How would I model an AI** flying a raider? There are a lot of options for Raider and Ravager pilots that I think would be great ways to customize.


*Bonus points to whoever recognizes who I shamelessly stole that from.
**Surely the Dark Kin have no proscription against Abominable Intelligence!