I can't honestly answer the question of whether that is new or not, but I do find this behavior quite handy combined with a few controls. It makes my economy a lot easier to manage while still having automated engineers.
1). Auto FRD engineers
2). Engineers do not assist queues
3). Maintain (x+z) engineers mk1 at this system, where x is the number of free engineers and z is the number of manually queued engineers.
First up, the manually assisting engineers stay under the force field, don't get shot up, helping replace those swarmers/fighters during a close battle, while only one or two go about repairing things. Secondly, engineers are cheap enough, it doesn't matter if some are idling if my economy as a whole runs a whole lot more smoothly - I can actually queue up a siege starship or five with just a pair of assisting engineers and not tank my entire economy, like would have happened with just six or ten indiscriminate engineers. Last, it is much easier to plan when resources are spent and units built at an entirely predictable rate.
In previous versions, where there were some power costs involved, it made some sense to switch them back and forth (or use FRD without any restrictions), but it is easier to manage your economy now by permanently stationing some where they are needed.
P.S. This combo of controls also helps you get out that mark three doomsday nuke without halting the rest of your operations.
