I do think that when a full battle map comes out, players should expect things to get exciting and dramatic. That's good, it means combats need to really stand out. But if the system does that, it needs to have rules for violent conflicts that slowly add up to standing out, but which are individually too small to be dramatic. The death by a thousand cuts rather than a single epic clash.
Cortex Prime does something like this by using it's Challenges module (
https://www.talesofxadia.com/compen...he-game#ChallengesOvercomingExtendedObstacles) and it's Timed Action mode. The later is the more familiar turn-based individual tracking action (aka 'standard' combat in D&D), while the former can be used when the players are trying to overcome any kind of fraught challenge, including skirmish combat or hordes of minions or environmental challenges or violent pursuit or even something like "round up all the necromantic horses that are running wild through town". During the challenge, each character in turn declares what they're doing to overcome the challenge, a test is made, and (here's where it differs from a 'regular' skill challenge) on a failure the character takes a penalty of some kind (for 4e, this could be HP or Healing Surge, or maybe an ongoing condition?). The challenge itself also gets a turn at the end of the order, using it to either attempt further injury to a character or to bolster itself (recover some of its "HP").
In play, this ends up being very free flowing and creative, allowing players/characters to use the full of their abilities/RP/skills/ingenuity/etc in wild and flavorful ways. It's quick, it has consequences for later, and you can create vivid moments without needing to go full on tactical map/turns.
With something like this integrated into 4e, there would be four types of resolution methods based on what's being overcome:
Skill Test for a single point
Extended Tests / Skill Challenges for complex and extended obstacles or endeavours
Skirmish/Crisis for complex and extended obstacles that pose a threat
Combat for... full on combat.
Could also make a case that Skill Challenges and Skirmish/Crisis could operate in pretty much the same way, just tuned differently. For something like a skill challenge, there's less immediately harsh penalties assigned and the SC doesn't get a turn to attack the players.
This obviously is just a framework and would need work to turn how CP does it into something that works for 4e. But having run something like this in CP for us it became quite seamless to flow between the different modes and keep the adventure moving excitedly forward.