[User23]

FWIW I still found the heavily mangled version fairly easy to read, maybe a 20-30% slowdown max and it got easier as I went.

I speedread though so maybe it's because I'm already used to not actually focusing on letters and taking in the gestalt instead. It's kind of like how it's easy to tell the equality of two sets written in different orders up to about size 4, and past that it gets tricky. This is why the classic tick mark system uses 4 ticks and then a slash for the fifth too.