It's a culture shift in shooting, but it at least makes some shooting units viable again. I hated having one round of shooting hitting on 6's or 7's because of hard-cover, long-range, wind in a westerly direction, the sky was overcast, and the shooting unit having maybe a turn or two where it was able to whittle down about 3 guys off the back of a 50 man horde.
I love the much more open shooting, the whole open fire-arc, total split fire
Having said that, when I put a shooting unit behing a combat unit, I stagger them like the black squares on a chess board, so there is an obvopus gap to see through, or of the model is obviously taller, or shooting something that towers over the battlefield, then go for it.
I can see why there are arguments about shooting into combat, but I like the cinematic style of Legalas and Tauriel in Desolation of Smaug, I see it like that. I'd give a bonus for shooting at the nearest unit rather than something further away - most people would do it the other way and give a penalty for not shooting the nearest unit