Yes!
Please take a look at this thread I started about Hugin.
What platform are you using? I created a perl script that runs on the linux platform on which I do the batch processing. When you work (or can work) on a linux platform I could help you out. On windows one can also run perl and Hugin, but I must admit my experience with perl on Windows is a bit old.And as for Hugin I know batch processing is possible, but haven’t put that to practice 
As for speed… well… when you have created a great template, the result is ehh great 
But that greatness comes at a price… which is time. When you have good automation you can just start it and let it run (ater some testing and debugging, that is what I can do now with my script)