By this point, I think that the ability to hold a forward skip button for fast forward has been long-standing enough that it should be considered a feature and therefore should be restored if it ever breaks.
While there is a proper fast forward, it's not as fast and actually shows the frames. Thus, I generally use it if I want to speed things along a bit but intend to exert control shortly, whereas I use a skip if I don't care about anything that's expected to happen during the duration of the skip, and might choose to hold down a skip if I'm done issuing commands and want to fast forward to the end of the level. I suppose you could make an explicit hotkey for that, but that has two disadvantages: first, it disrupts existing workflow, and second, when holding the skip button, you can release it to see what's going on if it seems like it's taking longer than expected.
My expected results from holding down space would be as follows:
1) menus should only respond to the button being pressed
2) in game, the skip hotkey should trigger repeatedly when held based on the keyboard repeat rate.