I will often just enter my team in sage and let it run on auto (when I actually do sage). When you are kicked out after 5 or 6 fights, what do you care how long those fights take. The main problem with Sage is the initial matching. Because matching is poor 90% of people don't even bother trying to fight. They could fix it either of 2 ways.

1) Seasonal points: Players are sorted not by level, but by point total for that season. Every time you do Sage your points at the end of the event are added to your season total. Then when the Season event resets (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring), each player gets reset to 0 points. After 1 week most all the whales will be up fighting each other, and everyone else can have more competitive sage.

2) Average Points: Players are sorted not by level, but by average sage point total. Every time you do sage you points at the end of the event are added to you ongoing total, and the number of times in sage is incremented by 1. Total points divided by total times in sage, gives your average sage * kickingness.