To expand on the timed-stops theme:
Remember a REALLY OLD game called "BEGIN"?
In Begin, you piloted a starship of the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, or Orions, and your AI allies and opponents would pilot starships too.
The game was essentially turn-based, but in a way real-time as well - there were ten (later expanded to 100 with the advent of faster CPU's) "phases" per turn. The game would execute all of those "phases" before returning control to the player for his next order (fire torpedoes, set a course, whatever).
Really, the only differences between real-time games and turn-based games are the granularity (RTS is finer, while TBS is coarser), and the ability to think as long as you want (RTS you can't, TBS you can). We're trying to merge the two - include the fine granularity of RTS, but leave in the ability to plot your strategy at your own pace like in TBS.
Thus, if we DO have real-time tactical combat, it will be structured such that the game host (or the player, in single-player games) has complete control over the rules for when players can pause the combat. If you don't like RTS, don't join a multiplayer game with the "autopause every X seconds" option disabled or set to a really high value, or with the "auto-unpause after Y seconds of strategizing" option set really low! There will surely be other players who like the leisurely pace - and why NOT cater to everyone if it's that simple?
Since the main issue people (myself included!) have with RTS games is the inability to plot strategies, and there's no harm (besides extra bandwidth usage) in turning up the level of detail, I really don't see a downside to this plan