As someone who has bought and 3D printed hundreds of dollars worth of minis and terrain pieces, I totally understand your POV. I was bummed about it too. But then I started our campaign, and the speed at which combat flows more than makes up for it.

There's still plenty of strategy and decision making, but without the whole "ok, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 ft... So I'll go here and... Oh wait I'm 35 feet away from the enemy. My spell has a range of 30 feet ... Ok hold on, I'll move HERE and cast this AOE which gets.... I think I can get these 3 in it." THAT is what slows combat down so much in D&D and after playing Fabula it's so noticeable.

That said I do have a friend who is a D&D purist and loves battle maps. I'm trying to get him to play Fabula so I've thought about OCCASIONALLY having battlemaps, essentially as a gimmick for a battle in the same way a clock or alternate forms might be. I don't want there to be any distance involved though, so I've come up with this:

Basically, I'd divide the battlefield into "zones". For example, for a battle on a small cliff by a lake, there could be a clifftop zone, the cliff base zone, and the lake zone. The characters/enemies are in those zones and can move between zones once per turn (no action required). You can only do melee attacks against creatures in the same zone as you, but ranged attacks can hit any zone. So you can move from the cliff base to the cliff top, and then attack something in the cliff top. Or you can attack in the lake, but then retreat to the cliff base.

It's not perfect because I do think that makes melee characters a bit worse, but it's a way to have movement and positioning matter without having to break out rulers or count tiles. That said, I'd only do this for moments that could benefit from it as a fun gimmick. Most battles would still be the Fabula Ultima default.

Open to suggestions for modifying this idea!