An AOE repair would probably be an ok compromise if it was less work than just re-implementing the magic beam (which would probably also fix collectors so may be better anyway) and was sensibly implemented:

Support ships have a maximum healing capacity and a maximum number of simultaneous ships they can heal. Healing is divided evenly between these ships, and if there are more ships than the max in the AOE then the most damaged take priority (and this is checked constantly and healing targets updated). The support ships would also have to know to move to ships that are damaged and not just rely on them being nearby.

That would sorta mimic what they did in HW1.