Barleywine
Shorthand/shortcuts can certainly be valid and useful, especially when dealing with a complicated spread involving a lot of cards. And I agree as well that reversed cards shouldn't be interpreted as the direct opposite of the upright meaning.
I prefer to avoid the whole issue of upside-down cards because it seems to encourage too much of "the switch is on or the switch is off" approach, but handled as you have described they can certainly have their uses.
I avoid them with Marseille-style decks since the pips are hard enough to decipher without the added complexity, and of course I never use them with Lenormand. Probably because I've been at this for so long and hardly see the pictures any more beyond the quick flash of recognition (unless some metaphorical twist jumps out at me from the details), I find it hard to get my head around the argument that "the upside-down cards disorient me" (or give me vertigo, or nausea, or whatever). Once we get past the need to deconstruct every jot in the imagery, that would seem to be less of a problem.