Actually there are lots of discrete auctions in the electronic trading world. For instance the S&P futures contracts trade this way before the open and depending on your perspective they have more "shenanigans" being played by HFT players. Not less.
There are 2 major issues that no one brings up when they say "simply add discrete auctions". A) what happens when there are more participants on 1 side of a price than on the other, what is the tie breaker after price? B) How does this solve the distributed systems problem of multiple exchanges trading at the same time?
There are 2 major issues that no one brings up when they say "simply add discrete auctions". A) what happens when there are more participants on 1 side of a price than on the other, what is the tie breaker after price? B) How does this solve the distributed systems problem of multiple exchanges trading at the same time?