Sicily to malta

When I was there in early September 2015, the ferry (Virtu ferries: http://www.virtuferries.com/) only ran at 6:00am (from Valetta, Malta terminal) and went to Pozzalo at the southern tip of Sicily. Pozzalo is a small town nowhere where I wanted to be and it wasn't clear to me whether local buses would run from there (to take me where I wanted to go). I didn't want to take a tour through Virtu ferries either, I wanted to travel independently and stay for a few days (as opposed to a day trip). So I axed the ferry idea altogether and took a cheap 40 minute flight to Catania instead. No, there is no need for a car on Malta - the bus system connects everywhere and it's cheap and easy to use (a car would be helpful in Gozo but that's about it). I hope this helps. Check out the Virtu ferries schedule and also Air Malta flight schedule to Catania, for comparison's sake.

Air Malta has flights from Catania and Palermo non-stop as does Ryanair from Catania. No reason to go through Rome.

Some car rentals prohibit taking the car on a ferry, so that's something else that would need to be checked.

Edited to add: When I checked ferry prices in 2015, the trip from Sicily to Malta was horrendously expensive for such a short distance.