Yes that's pretty clear really. The question is if they are allowed to talk to each other in secret, coordinating their manoeuvers, or not.
Furball to me suggests everyman for themselves.
It says to divide the players into two teams of four, so I'm not sure a free-for-all is what FFG had in mind.
I initially read it the same way you did though, and I think that an every-man-for-himself game variant would be awesome. Taking a page from the old Doom deathmatch, you could even respawn a turn after you get shot down, and you'd play for number of kills after a certain number of turns.
4-man team to me suggest they will work together. winning or losing as a team. objective = eliminate all enemy ships.
Both would make sense. If not it would be like in real time combat every man for himself. Of course the pilots could radio each other in reality but sometimes even that's not fast enough... In that case support ships would be really bad because if someone choses lets say Garven Dreis and nobody is ever in range to give a focus token that would be really stupid.
If you were allowed to communicate this would be less of a problem, but then it would be more like a normal 120 point game. So i might even prefer the possibility that they can't communicate in a team except if the other team can also hear it just because it would be lie a real squadron. You have to understand each other blindly!
imo communication should be allowed but with a max time perhaps set aside in planning stage just so games dont go over time - in my experience on multi-player games you get a range of different experience and some players are very indecisive and keep second guessing themselves which can make the game drag... as long as planning and rounds are played ina timely manner im all for communication between players.