D'ac, but um, are you ranting, raving, elaborating? Did you want to discuss a particular point?

With your first sentence being: Anybody who knows me more than in passing, knows I have no love of or respect for the current orthography of English. I got the feeling there was going to be a "however" at the end of your post.

It was all interesting though. As an aside, can you tell me how you would pronounce the vowel sounds you presented; (ā /eɪ/, ē /i:/, ī /aɪ/, ō /oʊ/, ū /jʊw/). A couple of word examples would be appreciated since regional pronunciations can skew the example set.