It would be boring if all FF's where exactly the same for traditions sake, I think it's nice their experimenting with different battle styles, the FFXII battles are a lot like the kind you see on MMORPG's (and you can set the battle system to wait mode you do realise?)
1up.com recently provided the world with a nice and detailed account of the English demo that will be coming out, packagded with the new Dragon Quest for it's American release.
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3145629&did=1