I played FFXII for 50 hours without gambits on wait mode, and I loathed it.

Kudos to you for being able to survive and enjoy that game experience.

I got to Cid in I think, the dreadnought fight, and his minions would kill my party my in less than 10 seconds because in terms of reflexes you couldn't possibly keep up with them in terms of speed. I said fuck it, turned on gambits, gave every member HP < 50% => CURA or something and won the fight on my first try with that method.

Then I was finally able to enjoy FFXII.
Different strokes.