In this particular case the Normal function might be useful. This is for MMA10
rules = {a -> b, b -> c, c -> a, d -> e, e -> d}
Normal[Dispatch[rules]]
This is the output:
![enter image description here](/c/portal/getImageAttachment?filename=ScreenShot2014-08-18at15.17.11.png&userId=48754)
A similar change has happened to many functions, for example NDSolve.
Cheers,
Marco