At 50mA, maybe you just want to eat the power loss in
the name of simplicity. But I'd look at the worst case,
there, which could be well more than the 50mA under
"ugly normal" let alone fault conditions ("remote" implying
opportunities for things to go wrong between here and
there).
There are now micromodule switching converters that
purport to offer small implementation-sizes, low BOM
cost and high efficiency - Linear Tech, Intersil are both
busy here, I expect other majors and upstarts as well
(but LTC and Intersil are the most aggressive about
sending me emails about theirs).
A current limit / short circuit protection is desirable
any time you have an exposed output pin that is
idiot-with-screwdriver accessible. If the distance is
long and the wiring cheap and the load variable, a
remote sense is a good idea. Some schemes have a
"predictive" load-droop compensation to eliminate
the return wire-pair, this can be neat as long as you
can reliably predict the end-end resistance (but it
had better stay as-designed, which things like
connector corrosion would make untrue over time).