Actually, the real time was not an improvement. It detracted from the whole risky warfare theme. The soldiers were no longer expendable units. They could take bazillion shots before dieing. Even though real time was optional, the game was clearly made with that feature in mind. The maps were huge,making turn based travels a chore,and both aliens and humans took more hits to die(humans moreso),to compensate the lack of control in real time.
While real time combat may seem realistic, it removes the very presence of realism. One feature that is on top of my mind is bleeding. JA2 had a *realistic* damage counter. There was a chance that you would start bleeding and would need a med pack for healing. While bleeding you took 1 or 2 points of damage every turn depending upon the severity of the wound. This thing can only be manageable in turn based system. In a real time system it gets very hectic as the time you would be healing yourself, dozens of enemies would be firing at you, real time. This problem could be fixed by adding a dedicated medic to your team but that brings another problem. The lack of one man armying. In a real time system you would not be able to kill 6 ill equipped people with one master assassin(explosives not withstanding). No matter what you do they will always have the benefit of number. A direct encounter would leave your soldier wounded and since there is no such thing as fog of war as of yet all the enemies would know your exact location(even if you are sniping).
TL;DR Switching to real time from turn based is not an improvement. Its a drastic change. That would be like saying that if Super Mario Brothers was a puzzle game instead of a platformer then it would be a better game. It is all about personal preference and there is no objective improvement.
You never actually played Apoc in real time mode, did you? You do know it pauses, right?
Not one of your 'arguments' holds any weight given the fact you don't even know how the game works (that your you didn't know the game paused and slowed down). What is the difference between losing 2 hitpoints every 'turn' vs losing two hit points every 'second'? I can pause every two seconds, heck, I can pause every quarter second and reissue orders. In turn based bleeding and wounds tend to be a non-issue: 'oh, i got shot? ok, I'll just use my turn to safely get behind cover and and initiate healing without any risk at all' or 'I'll use my turn to kill the enemy with other units, and heal my guy safely in place'. In realtime you can continue to take fire while retreating and trying to killt he opponent actually takes time during which your guy can be shot again and bleed more.
And the fact alone that you declare turn based to be more realistic, then complain that real time does not allow 'one man armying' just ruins your credibility.
Once again, it is evident you have never ACTUALLY played (meaning put time into) a real time with pause game, such as real time Xcom Apoc or 7.62 High Calibre or the likes.
Once again:
Real Time with Smart Pause does not equal RTS, for the record.
I have
never issued an order in Xcom Apoc while the game was unpaused. Not once. I am pausing every few seconds at the longest, and every fraction of a second during battle. 7.62's awesome configurable autopause (aka Smart Pause) was great for that reason. Try looking down and finding the space bar key on your keyboard, then use that while playing xcom apoc in realtime mode and tell me'it gets very hectic'.
And one last time, just to be clear:
Real Time with Smart Pause does not equal RTS, for the record.