The paths/routes just provide options to the bots. Basically it acts as a set of different directions or choices the AI decision tree can make, without a bot route thogh it doesn't have any route to follow, so it just defaults to stupid behavior which involves wandering the level randomly while spamming force jump. Bots are designed to attack closest enemy available that it encouters along its route; however, if the enemy gets too far away from it, it will ignore the enemy and just continue down the bot route it has chosen. Forcing bots to walk would simply make them extremely easy to kill, I think this was designed that way on purpose so it wouldn't be so easy to kill them. Like Xycaleth says though, the npc/bot ai code needs a workover, but that's a massive undertaking that will require someone with motivationandl lots of time and experience with AI coding.