I feel your pain my friend, am sharing the same frustration. All I can say is that users will most likely be able to cope fine with the alternative non-ajax checkout experience, in my case it is an Administrative desire that the Ajax cart works in the visually appealing manner that it normally does.
Think I'm gonna try to rally together the others that have been affected and try to get on the bug reports when possible.. I know we're not the only affected parties..
http://forge.prestashop.com/browse/PSCFV-5675
http://forge.prestashop.com/browse/PSCFV-8701