Try as I might, I can't see that socialising while fighting is a good idea. You should be fighting while you're fighting right? And if what you're doing is so monotonous that you must distract yourself from it by socialising, then SE needs to address that problem, not by automating the system, but by giving people less monotonous things to do.

Perhaps they could just add a toggle for auto-attack so that people can flip it on or off when they really really need to talk. This could still preserve the action-based combat we were promised.

To further the original combat system, SE would first need to believe in it. And it's obvious that they don't. If they don't even believe in the concept behind their product, they can't begin to improve it. Instead of improving it, SE are merely set to destroy it.