Honestly I used the pop ups on a couple of missions (they will go up tomorrow) and found them kind of a mixed bag. They slowed me down a lot, but they did prevent any accidental clicking myself to death.
One thing I did not like is how they present when you are fighting at the edge of the screen. On the bottom it covered up the hotkeys, and on the top it covered up my character and enemy I was fighting. Sure I could see all the necessary info, and I know the hotkeys, but that kind of thing just isn't pretty. It just needs some polish, I always like seeing my character on screen and the combat even if it is just a quick animation.
One thing I very much like in this mode is the ability to select an enemy so I can finally read those popups that explain their abilities (like corrosive and poison). I don't know if that was possible before or not, but it possible now, and since I don't use the wiki so much it is very important to me