I am a TW fan before a TWC member, and i think i was a member of the official totalwar forums even longer. I'm sorry to say it, not meaning to be harsh, but if you play TW just for the campaign and skip battles you are probably playing the wrong game. There are far better options if the part you like is the management.
And anyways, that's not the point... the point is that this is a new game and there are a lot of uknown things and also known things that require a clarification... and that's what questions are for. (really, still not a single question about how will armies interact with such big cities, or how the problem of the cities being so close to each other is resolved).
I highly doubt they reduce the scale of battles. If anything, they will increase it. They just won't make "the biggest total war yet" with smaller battles. That battle is smaller because it is a scripted historical battle, they are often medium sized and not using the biggest unit size (which you can change in the options)The first question was the best about the scale of the battles. It is obviously reduced because of the dramatic increase in the quality of the graphics.
*I think they are using early code on purpose just to get the good stuff later and "wow" the easily-hyped audiences. If this is actually all they got they are in serious trouble.
In any case, i liked the detail of the roman "marines" boarding the egyptian flagship despite crashin in a weird angle and having an height disadvantage (althought i hope that does not mean that all the crashes will be in prefixed spots).