We have automatic xfades, we have for years, you can set it by track or for the full project.
I guess the intent is that you shouldn’t try to use multi clip xfade with the range tool but with the select tool.
As I am a “select tool user” that only changes to range tool for specific usage I am not the least bothered by how this works.
But I can understand that users who prefer to use the range tool as their main tool gets annoyed with how it works.
Are you perhaps a PT convert?
Most PT users tries to keep working the way they did in PT (as PT uses range selection as it’s primary editing paradigm) and it is not always the optimum way to do things in Nuendo.