[thwest]

The negative exponent bothers me. Every implementation I've used specifies either mantissa bits or exponent bits, as a positive value. The extraneous '-' everywhere feels like a waste

[Veedrac]

Given there are no exponent bits (all of the bits are effectively mantissa bits with no hidden bit), your plan doesn't seem to make sense.

The numbers are (integer_value * 2 ^ constant_exponent), such that all bits are dedicated to integer_value.

[Retra]

I don't understand your complaint... A waste of what? You'd rather have all values expressed in terms of just raw bits?