I hear and feel your pain. But this is rather not a problem of array questions, but of the person creating a research.
Array questions are fine, they just shouldn't be overused. On a big screen, they help to fill in quite a lot of data quickly and easy. On a small screen you don't have this. If you would get rid of arrays in general, it would be a pain on big and small screens...
However, I agree that for certain target groups "mobile first" should really be taken serious. But it is not just a "design thing". There is a general tendency in the research industry to build questionnaires that are too long, too annoying, too boring, etc.
The problem is with institutes, but also (and often mainly) with end clients. You can tell them a thousand times, that it is not advisable to do this or to that, but mostly they think you don't want to give them what they want, you want to save money, etc. If I would want to save money I would just do as they request, because the time consulting them is quite expensive. I would just put their requests and give them their "results" (knowing that they are worthless). Unfortunately today, on client side, there are often very inexperienced people in charge of research and they are often under a lot of pressure from their internal clients. So the say "yes" to any request they get from marketing managers or product managers (also because they have a higher standing in the company) and then of course ignore any advice or warning from a research institute (they can't go back on what they already promised, or they don't want to).
So even if we get rid of array questions in mobile, they will find another annoying way to ask the same questions. I fear, that it will get even more annoying.
But you know how it is: "Bullshit in, bullshit out". I am not happy about this tendency in research.
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