Why would you not assume this to be true? Seeing as NO ONE has played the game before VERY RECENTLY it wouldn't even make sense for him to be any good at it, and if its early in the game, which 99% of demos are, of COURSE the fighting is going to be slow, part of the idea of RPGs is, you know, having your stats go up as time goes on? Like speed? I mean name me a JRPG that starts out with blazing fast battles.
Also, who cares if you zone? It's EXACTLY the SAME. The only difference is you don't have to worry about dumb A.I. getting caught on walls, or aggroing someone you don't want to fight against. I see no downside in having the player zone into battles; it lets you know you're in a fight, when its over, and keeps the rest of your party from fucking around when you're not fighting.
I swear when did it become cool to hate on Square, I guess they got too cool recently.