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Well having it turned on means a defending side would only have to hold on for XX minutes (around 40) to win and the offensive side only have that amount of time to win.

It doesn't kill game experience (except, no offense, to player with no strategic mind and just rush blindly ahead with the best unit possible, like that Urban Cohort guy we saw the other day). In fact it adds to it. Quite a few times my hand was forced by the timer to rush the town square before reorganizing my lines because it took too long to drive the enemy off the walls. And there are other times during all kinds of battle where going on the offensive was suicide and I was more than happy to win by waiting it out. In fact, the other day I just fought one of those battles. I had a half stack of Camillian legions in EB facing 2 full stacks of Gallic/Spanish units. Since this was VH battle on EB there's no way I can win on the offensive so I tried to hold on. I was overwhelmed with 1 minute 40 seconds to go
Though I consider myself quite good for holding on that long in EB VH/VH.
Though I did make one mistake and without it I might have lasted that 1min 40s.

As for realism, I don't think it's very realistc. In real life a general do not stop fighting and the defensive side win after a set amount of time. A general orders withdraw when he sees that further attack would be futile, leaving the field to the defender. I think this is what the game was trying to recreate, and since the player seldom orders withdraw we get the timer. Maybe think of the timer as the limit of the mental stress of the army and when time's up there's no other option but for the general to order withdraw, except that's not very accurate if you have 10 cohorts and the enemy only has one that is down to 20 men left in the town squre...

Situations when there would be a time limit to a battle would be when an incoming weather phenomenon of some kind would make fighting too difficult, or when darkness is approaching (it's impossible to fight in complete darkness back then, except for the most skilled. There's been accounts of troops from the same side killing one another just because they mistook the standards, and this is even worse at night when the standards aren't even visible.)

So maybe it'll be more realistic if there's only battle timer in late afternoon (as weather is not a factor in RTW). But then the battle should be randomly chosen from the 3 settings and not just morning, to represent when the attacking army arrive for battle. Choosing the time should only be a luxury for sieges.

Speaking of sieges, when the sally army defeats the enemy, the enemy breaks off the siege and withdraws. What happen if the besieging army just decide to withdraw without fighting and the sallying army was unable to route all their units? Cause in that case I don't think the siege is broken as the besieging army probably just retreated to their camp or fortification in an orderly fashion.
Also if the player deems an assault failed, could he press the withdraw button and all units withdraw orderly and the siege is still maintained?