Two suggestions; Set spells to protect base for defense and multiple research.
Hello-
I am a new user so I'm hoping this hasn't been discussed before.
I think it would be great to set your spell factory to a "protect" mode which can then be used as a defense for the base when the user is offline. Whatever spells are in queue will be used. The user can set a location on the base of where the spells should go off similar to the range of any other defense (ie. enemy gets within the range and a lightning spell drops, or heal drops on CC troops/buildings, etc.).
The other suggestion is to have another lab for research or an update that allows more than one research at a time. I'm currently at TH8 when everything starts to take forever to upgrade. I can only imagine how much worse it gets for the higher up levels.
My clan members have requested this to be updated effective immediately. LOL.
Supercell wants money from gems, so adding multiple researches at the same time would cause them to lose $$. People often feel the same way as you do, and they just spend money to finish the upgrade!