Yeah, it seems it's not usable in combat in an exploitable way, tried it, haven't been able to reproduce it so far. If this is indeed a feature to speed up breaking of doors, barrels and such out of combat, then it's fine and good one .
Er.. I think the amount of time it takes to bash through a high level barrier is intentional, to encourage you to value an investment in the Lockpicking ability. So, I wouldn't label this as "fine and good".
The fact that magic continues to offer a cost-free means of getting around Lockpicking and durability costs is bad and broken enough.
. 