Impressive ability to insulate from events.
The story of the PoE series is a testimony to the lack of audience for RTwP products.
Devs kept caving in to UgoIgo players demand so to reach the current situation: it is made UgoIgo.
Apart from that, sure, there is a solid demand for RTwP and improvements toward it were kept numerous as patches kept being released.
Except that tougher battles start with any encounter.
Never been about a sparse use of pause reserved to tougher battles, it has always been about the slideshow occurring when players can not face any type of encounters without pausing to place any kind of inputs.
That is what led to the current situation. If players had had the skillset to refrain themselves from pausing every single second any kind of encounter, today, players will discuss ways to improve the RTwP side of things, not welcoming the release of a UgoIgo mode.