All the payments that were made on saturday I got on Monday itself, so no big deal. Except atleast for 3 saturdays atleast you'll get full working day to make payments. IMO its good.
Even currently NEFT works only during banking hours. If you make a NEFT transfer after banking hours, it will be executed only when the bank opens (about 8 - 9 AM on a working day). So thats not new.
IMPS is a good option to use. BTW I use HDFC mostly and till date have never been charged for both NEFT and IMPS transactions. Don't know why. Though my colleagues in the office who have same salary accounts as me, have been charged.