Strangely, I find myself agreeing with Puzz (I say "strangely" because I've not been terribly optimistic person in regards to the game either). I also took Palamedes to mean that the actual battle speeds has been reduced, and not that the pace would be slower simply because units are larger. Were it otherwise, I'm quite certain Palamedes would've said so.

As econ and others have pointed out, however, playing the demo should give us a pretty good idea one way or the other.