I'm just one user, and I'm not Brad.... But, you asked for my opinion....
I'm a software engineer, or rather "was" for 18 years. I've graduated and design entire aircraft now. In my experience software should be designed to reflect the way the user works. The user should not have to adjust to the software.
Brewers work and think in terms of mash efficiency. We don't think about total efficiency... As a home Brewer I don't even care about total efficiency. If I were a professional, I would... But, even then for beer quality control, I would still be more concerned with themash . The rest is justvolume loss that I can't really change without redesigning my system.
Then for extract Brewers they effectively have a mash efficiencyof 100% . It's simple, natura , and models the way we actually work and let'sme iinput what I can actually measure.
The reality is that efficiency is a bit tricky. modeling it as a fixed feature of your equipment just isn't right either. Mash efficiency changes significantly based on target OG. The bigger the beer the lower the efficiency. Mash efficiency is affected by the ingredients in the mash tun... Using some ingredients can impact the lauter and reduce the amount of sugar extracted. For example, when I make my pumpkin beer with 5 lbs of roasted pumpkin in the mash, I loose 10% mash efficiency.
Actual trub loss is effected by the amount and type of hops used in the kettle. Large quantities of leaf hops will wasted a lot of wort, compared to pellets. So, tru loss isn't a fixed number either.
If you don't know these things and blindly follow beersmith then you will struggle greatly to get consistent results. I consider efficiency to be a recipe parameter, not an equipment one. Sure there are equipment effects, but the recipe is equally intertwined, causing efficiency fluctuations of up to 20% points (or more for extreme cases like ansAmerican barley wine). That means I cant just have a global efficiency number that I adjust across all recipes. You could however get pretty close by looking at it by style.
I track my mash efficiency by target pre boil gravity. And I track my trubloss by total kkettle hops. Why? Because that's what dominates the effects. I'd make beersmith work the way the real world does, instead of trying to shoehorn the world into a largely made up concept.
Regarding the workaround. I don't really see it as much of a big deal for a home Brewer. I'm about as data driven as they come, if you've read any of my process and data recordingddescriptions of my own process I'msure most ewillagree . It's just easier to target a fixed post boil volume. Every recipe starts with the same amount of wort in the kettle and the Boiloff is always the same, and the post boil volume is always the same. Sure you waste a little bit of wort, but even in an extreme case it might be an extra 1/2 gallon in a 5 gallon batch. For a $30 recipe that $3 waste. But, the consistency that you get in exchange can actually work to improve your beer over time. A fair trade in exchange for one less number to worry about.
That's about 25% of my thoughts on the topic.