While the issue does exist for some, in many cases it's a lack of understanding in the mechanic. Whether you do or do not get hit is not exclusively related to the "red circle." The cast bar of the ability is what matters - if you are inside the "red" zone when the cast finishes, you're getting hit whether you stand there or are 40 yalms from the spot. You can see in a number of the Titan videos (some of them have been posted in this thread) that the player is clearly standing in the zone when the cast finishes. Understanding this greatly improved my gameplay.

That said, it would be much more intuitive if the cast were to be in sync with the red zone. Whether this is a good, bad, lazy, awesome design is really just subjective.

I'm not denying the existence of the lag, it is out there, but the majority of videos and complaints I see are simply people not watching the cast and claiming lag.