Another special snowflake here.
I ran 4 of the 5 encounters on the grid, and tried running the 5th one without the grid.
The first encounter (with the ogre in his cave) could have been run easily without the grid; I had already drawn the cave on the grid to show the players what it looked like, so I figured I might as well put the minis on there too.
The 3 encounters with the hobgoblins were all on the grid, but took place in fairly tight passages and rooms, so there weren't really any issues with the lack of AoOs. The battle with the hobgoblin warchief took the longest.
The 5th encounter was with the three hobgoblins in the armory, and I decided not to bother with the grid for that one. I also didn't bother running in initiative order either; I just started with the highest initiative roll, then went clockwise around the table. This one took less than two minutes to resolve, which was awesome.
I enjoyed running the last combat without the grid, but I think it will take some practice learning to run without the grid. I've been playing with the grid for years, and I've spent even more time playing computer and console RPGs that have concrete visual representations of everything. Once I get the hang of it again, I think I'll enjoy the fluidity of gridless combat.
