My players tend to carefully plan their actions in combat, leaning heavily on their knowledge of the combat rules. They take into consideration who will act when, and which enemies still have reactions available. In general I'm fine with this, but it makes combat somewhat predictable, and the players' deliberations can sometimes take a fair amount of time.
Does anyone have experience using the optional speed factor rules described in the DMG pp. 270-271? I understand there will be overhead imposed per-round as everyone announces their actions and rolls initiative, but does the unpredictability the system imposes cut down on players over-planning their actions? Any suggestions to manage the additional logistics imposed by this system?
For context, I run my game over Google Hangouts, using shared spreadsheets to coordinate combat maps, character sheets and initiative order; for scheduling reasons we have to play in 60-90 minute sessions, so I'm interested in anything that affects how quickly we can resolve combat.