I don't think pausing is a sin. Because the action is so much faster than real life, we humans need to be able to pause so we can fill the role of the unit officers just as well as the general. A real life centurion wouldn't let his unit face the wrong way, but we have no officer constructs in the AI to help with that, so we must micromanage the units.

Yes of course it would be a big challenge to run large battles without pausing and using the camera restricted to the general, but this is just a case of tying our hands behind our backs to let the quicker processing computer have an advantage. I wouldn't enjoy that sort of thing, because it is too much like click fest RTS experiences to suit me.