I think it's a poor business model to charge the customer every time the mag ships. It would be in their best interests to go to a yearly model, because as it is, I'm not sure that the original poster is the only one who thinks, "gee, they charged my account two weeks ago, why hasn't my mag shipped." This is not something they want their customers to think 6 times a year.
And I think it's an understandable for the OP to be a little perturbed. And the justifications? To order a magazine subscription even with the old model and have to wait EIGHT weeks to get an issue is really poor in the digital age and shouldn't be used to justify practices now. I could see it when they had to type each label on a typewriter or something, but there's no excuse today.