I also tried the following to remedy this situation with the AI movement around the grid but again they are exhibiting the wrong delayed response. I tried to select all AI units and switch the "danger", "stealth", "aware", "safe" modes. I thought maybe they are stuck in the "danger" mode somehow. So when I forced them into "aware" and even "safe" modes which is supposed to make them more relaxed they are still following me very slowly or not at all once I enter any area that contains enemy units.
I believe this clearly shows that by default the non-human-triggered automated AI logic sets all the friendly AI units into danger mode once they "see" that there are enemies in the area and this behavior overrides custom commands issued by the human squad leader. This is clearly a severe bug in AI behavior logic that needs to be addressed. Human squad leader commands must take precedence over any default AI logic.