Spell batching is still technically in the game; it’s just vastly more efficient and fast:
That link goes to a post which quotes another post which quotes Celestalon who explains how they upgraded the system.
I’m no engineer, so my question to those who have knowledge of these things is: can the batching upgrades be reversed so that it’s inefficient and sucky again? 
Other than that, I have no horse in this race, myself.