decan
I think you are right Barleywine with regard to don't be too simplistic but to deal with reversals with a subtle mind!The trick is to try to turn the usual keyword meaning on its head without just creating a mirror image; that's where I see the main subtlety in reversals. It's entirely too simplistic (at least for me) to just say what it "isn't." These days I hardly notice the image on the cards, just a flick of recognition and orientation, so the visual disparity doesn't have any hold on me.
Well, this needs probably a kind of mastery nevertheless.
I just found something I like concerning reversals in the first book of Joan Bunning:
"When a card is reversed, its energy is not fully developped. I may be in its early stages, or losing power. It may be incomplete or unavailable. The qualities of the card are present, at least potential, but they can't express completely."