I suspect that "only squad leader spawn" will be an option in Portal - it was in the BF2042 iteration, IIRC (which I may not).
The problem with the commander role in BF2 (and in BF4) is that if someone doesn't take the role, the team are at an immense disadvantage.
4-man squads do feel quite restrictive: I have more than three friends. I'll wait and see what the maps in the next beta are like before deciding if I like it or not. The problem, of course, is that 32 doesn't divide by 5 or 6 without a remainder.
You can still play BF2, by the way.