I'm wondering why the attack was conducted with mainly aviation assets. Could they not have had better results, as well as scout and engage American avation ships should they appear, if they brought more assets. Basically, why not a commited battle instead of a hit-and-run?
Because the Japanese fleet was operating at the limit of its endurance as it was, and the raid was intended from the start to be a raid, not a sustained battle.
I've written more about the Pearl Harbor attack before, here and /u/parksungjun tackled it here. To briefly summarize those couple of posts, the goal of the Pearl Harbor attack was to knock out the American fleet at Pearl Harbor to buy the Japanese time to build a defensive perimeter in the western Pacific. To do that, the Pearl Harbor attack was coordinated with other raids on American, British and Dutch possessions all over the western Pacific, which tied down other Japanese military assets. The Pearl Harbor attack was a means to an end, not an end in itself.