Unnecessary? My friends and I thought it was pretty funny. For Cavil, once Tory was gone, there were only 2 logical options left: die now or die later.
There were no new bodies, and no upgrades since most of the knowledge of the Cylons' design was locked in the memories of the final five. Oops. I mean final four. Guess that's the end of the line.
Of course, it's kind of weird that he didn't have a plan to recapture Hera if she was taken. She was the other option for Cylon survival, so it was kind of surprising for him to abandon even the slim possibility of winning a gun battle in the CIC and taking her back. But even so, things looked awfully grim.