Just upgraded to 5.6 U in hopes that the batch render feature, introduced in I think 5.0 and broken in I think 5.5x, might have been fixed. No luck. We've now got a very nice and handy progress wheel on the icon now, but batch rendering would have been far more useful. I still don't get it: new features are introduced but things that are officially part of prior releases and officially supposed to work don't. PLEASE o PLEASE fix it!!
(and happy new year)