I use the auto sparge. Not all that impressed with it by the way, other than the ease of delivering the sparge water to the top. The ball float thing mostly get in my way. I think it's supposed to help make it easier to match run off rate to sparge rate, anyway, I digress. I used the perforated pizza pan before. I don't think the delivery of water is a huge issue as long as you are not pouring in a large volume and disturbing greatly the grain bed. The top inch or so of grain probably not critical if you disturb anyway, and I know some advocate slicing through the teig and top few inches of grain bed. Anyway I digress again.
I think you need a dose of patience if you want to continue fly sparging. Batch sparging does require trying to match the sparge volume (as opposed to rate) to the runoff volume, and also recirculating until wort is clear a few more times with each batch you do. If you end up doing 5 gal batches with only one batch sparge, that will def save time. I'm not sure so you are saving a lot of time if you end up doing two or more batch sparges, but since I don't do batch sparges, I will concede this point to other more experienced with batch sparging. I usually start my run off and aim for rate of 1 quart per minute, which is pretty slow. With a pre boil volume of close to 13 gal (or more if doing a 90 min boil ) this gets close to about an hour. sometimes i go a little faster, but usually not. Once the wort level starts to get low and I can see the top of the grain bed, I will start adding the sparge water to the top. While it is true, that once you get a few inches of water over the wort level, it should float on top of the greater density wort, that you can continue to add the remainder of your sparge water all in at once. However, if you do not have an insulated lauter tun, that layer of top sparge water might cool below 168-170 so I like to try and match sparge water and runoff rate with intermittent heat on the sparge kettle to keep to temp. i used to store it in a 5 gal insualted cooler and gravity feed on my old setup. It takes me about an hour to collect my wort and sparge. I usually brew 11 gal batches with target finished volume of 10 gallons. Once the boil kettle hits about 3-4 gallons full, I will light the burner to save time bringing to a boil. I also usually do single infusion mashes with a mash out (direct heated tun). I usually don't mash for an hour anymore. I have been getting good conversion in as little as 15-20 minutes. So I save some time in these steps rather than in the sparge.
TD