Did not read the whole thread.
I think what they were trying to do was make it old school Final Fantasy style, where pushing right (or the R button) would target all enemies, while pushing left (or the left shoulder button) would target all allies.
In a 3D rendered environment, that doesn't always work, so they decided to do a single button to switch between the two.
Perhaps if they included an option to tell it to default to AoE on or off, rather than forcing you to switch back and forth. Know what I'm sayin'?
EDIT: Yeah, the post right above mine says about the same thing. ^_^
