My players definitely feel a sense of accomplishment during 5E; the shorter battles give the larger battles a sense of accomplishment; as well as some of the adventure design. Since we're currently playing through <redacted>, they have enjoyed the faster combats definitely. They even got a sense of accomplishment out of last session when they managed to extricate themselves from a situation in which they were almost all certainly going to get annihilated. (fast talking bard for the win).