Personally, I enjoy full assault. It was difficult when they only had 5 minute battles but now that the battles are longer it isn't bad. There's no need to spend gold (I'm a free player so wouldn't anyway,) you get to get rid of units that you aren't using anyway (even though you get more trashy, useless units for each victory,) and you get a pretty nice prize at the end.
Sure, nobody understands the point system and we get garbage units during the battles, but my faction can play completely free, place in top 100, and get a unit with a few hundred thousand stats. How is that so bad?