I've just turned them around and used the indexed lever for the FD. It's worked fine that way. I was using it that way at the time on a bike with a triple with and Shimano MTB-pull FD. 2 or 3 clicks to change chainrings, one click to trim, as needed. My Command is 7-speed.

"F" mode is indeed not actually friction, but just lighter indexing. I'm not sure if there was ever a version made that had an actual friction mode.