The importance of crowd control won't be diminishing, necessarily. It's not clear if magic armour will block ALL effects (such as charm). And there's also the summons to act as damage sinks.
Regardless though, initiative never seemed to be a big deal to me. I invested in perception in order to control my combat order within my team (it's good if the mage can cast a buff before the fighters attack) but it's a potentially expensive stat that only really means you get one extra turn at the beginning of combat IF your perception is the highest. And then, even if the enemies move first, they often have to spend a lot of their AP just to move into range. Seemed like a pointless benefit.
