Change Import button to only queue, so 100% of import is conducted via cron?

I have a number of feeds all set to Process in Background, however the initiation of the import still requires that the first batch is handled by the browser and then after a delay, it's left to cron. Is there a way to make it so the browser only queues the import and cron does all the grunt work? This is mainly to make the import process more responsive as currently it can take 20-30 seconds to process the first batch which is quite annoying.

Is there a hook I could use to handle this, or is this a feature request? Thanks!