I wasn't saying they were interesting decisions ;-) I was referring exactly to what you described, clicking through building lists, renewing trade routes, listening to leaders - I want less of those
I want less of these too, but it's a tertiary problem. The main problems are 1) the UI design in V is painfully inefficient and 2) you spend as much or more time waiting than playing in some cases.
Yes, reducing rote patterns of micromanagement makes the game more playable without altering meaningful decisions, so it's almost strictly positive as a change. However, note that if you wanted to, you could manage 60 cities in Civ IV in less time than you can manage 10 in civ V, by a wide margin.
Was it efficient to leave things to the governor? No, not really, but if you wanted you could do that and avoid prompts up the wazoo when you knew you were going to win. With much less turn time (though still a little problematic) you also could finish a winning position faster.
Better still, you could click on a city and queue or modify queue without even going into the city screen. These are micro niceties that make Civ V look archaic in comparison. Civ V has micro UI on the level of good 1990's games, not good ~2010 games, and nasty turn times. Civ VI can do better and I really hope it manages.
ETA : I see you mention 20 seconds AI turn... how is it even possible for your turn 200 to be quicker than that ? I guess if you never ever play domination ? 20 seconds is a teeny bit longer than it ideally would be, but come on. It's a grand strategy game, you have stuff to think about.
The only reason I can't handle mid-late game wars on a 60 second timer is that the game's engine can't keep up with my inputs. I have to wait after moving a unit, get forced-deselection nonsense, and can't rely on input buffering because it's inconsistent. Outside of war one doesn't need anywhere near that.
I realize not everyone plays quickly, but when you do and IBT represents half or more of your play time in the late game (especially true when doing peaceful win conditions) the game gets dull fast.