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In an actual war there are inevitably survivors from both sides of a battle. Indeed, the survivors make up the majority of the participants in most cases: the US military in World War II considered a unit that had suffered 30% casualties to have reached its limit. Even a disaster such as Stalingrad found about 90,000 Germans taken prisoner at the battle's end, though barely one in twenty of these would survive the gulag. Casualties do not come in the form of only the dead either: soldiers get wounded at a much higher rate than they die, and they get sick or surrender too.
Contrast these conditions, which could be extrapolated upon at length, with the wars waged in most tactical titles. The goal here is usually to kill everything and advance onwards. Certainly this tactic works, but it is simultaneously unrealistic and, when used too often, rather boring. At the very least once a major goal is achieved human opponents can be expected to surrender rather than die pointlessly. The fantastical nature of just about every tactical title makes me reluctant to assume all non-human opponents would also surrender, but the potential does exist.
Cleaving aside the unrealistic nature of killing everything (which it could be said comes with the territory, given that tactical titles usually do not take place in the 'real' world), this tactic certainly does get repetitive. Many tactical titles may not make the ostensible goal of their missions to kill everything all the time, but when the battles can be ended by default in this fashion it still counts.
Instead of being able to kill everything, the player should be forced to use different tactics to achieve victory. Holding off the enemy for awhile, as a few Fire Emblem missions do, or seizing a certain piece of ground. There are other battlefield tactics that could be tried out in a tactical game, however, and their introduction might make for a very interesting time. Incorporating the surrender of the enemy is a play concept I cannot recall in any tactical title I've ever played or heard of, and not in the Dragon Force sense of having opposing soldiers be beaten into submission and taking them captive afterwards. A surrounded enemy force could give up rather than needing to be destroyed, for instance. Winning could be decided through a battle of attrition, and once the enemy has taken sufficient losses they retreat. The accuracy statistic of a character can be used to determine whether the enemy is wounded or killed by the attack. If the enemy is a mercenary group or poorly motivated for whatever story reason, the player can bribe them. The single best way to incorporate elements like these into a tactical game would be to grant experience and money in cases other than the killing of the enemy; prisoners have their possessions plundered all the time. Realism may not be greatly desired in tactical RPGs, but variety in the missions most assuredly ought to be.
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