Patch?! Great!....label this one v.Catch-22

Oh, why is it that when a new patch comes out it affects the game so much that the playability is almost ruined to the point that it isn't worth it? I downloaded 1.5 and...ugh. I hate it. A lot of people out there seem to dig it and it has solved a few crash issues but......Why is it such a pain to get your capital ships to autocast abilities? When you have a fleet of 16 and numerous cruisers etc. etc. who wants to micromanage special abilities in a huge battle? I have to select a capital ship and assign on my keyboard each slot first and then hit a autocast on/off for each ability..annoying. Plus for some reason, when starting the game my home planet loses credits incredibly fast (this is with fast credits, fast resources  turned on in the options.). So i'm left with upgrading the infrastructure...waiting....waiting...build resource extractors.....waiting......waiting.....build capital ship factory.......waiting etc.  I don't even get to do a single bit of research until nearly an hour into the game. A fun and replayable game has been rendered tedious and dull. I'm removing the patch, I will take my chances with the crashing, I will miss being able to do a huge random map though and/or using the tools, but who has a year to sit around and watch a game play itself on a single map!