In that /film interview, Johnson explained that the thinking for Holdo needing to stay on the ship was that an autopilot or droid would have some sort of tell that would be obvious enough for the First Order to pick up on. That makes enough sense for me; I totally buy that there would be a quantifiable difference between the way a ship piloted by an organic vs. a computer would fly.
This wasn’t a fast maneuverable ship like the Falcon and a straight flight path would seem the best option in terms of keeping distance and not using more fuel. Autopilot would seem normal in this situation and should have been what they were doing throughout (since they weren’t doing anything else). There wasn’t that much time left for the First Order to even notice anything funny. Holdo just stood there on the bridge until she decided to ram the First Order. Even if one does accept this slender reed of an excuse, I don’t think it explains why captains of other ships stayed behind when their ships were destroyed.
Bigger issues are that the First Order didn’t lightspeed ahead and were somehow unable to detect or view the smaller ships.
RJ seemed to be leaning heavily on a nautical model where two ships could be involved in an hours long chase, life rafts make a desperate run to a nearby island, unseen on the dark waves, and the captain goes down with the ship. I see the merit as a matter of inspiration and style but it requires some weird and not wholly believable explanations to make it work in the Star Wars universe.