There's quite a bit to unpack in your question, beginning with some basic terminology. Because maps are two dimensional projections the north on a map is grid north and not true north. This should be obvious if you consider lines drawn north from any two points will be parallel, rather than intersecting. Ordinary navigation requires a transform from grid north to magnetic north, which is what the bezel dance is accomplishing.
I agree with you that it's time consuming and onerous. Much worse is the fact that it forces people to develop operating the compass as a skill, rather than actual navigation. The compass with baseplate is meant to spare you having to carry a protractor to read bearings off of the map along with the arithmetic to transform the bearing.
The reason you don't orient the map and read a bearing with a compass is accuracy. An initial error of a couple degrees results in a very large displacement if you travel any significant distance. Ending up hundreds of meters left or right of your target is hardly efficient. In some terrain it can be very difficult to recover from.
Following a magnetic bearing well is a skill in itself. In fairly open terrain the system you suggest of picking a landmark and heading towards it works well. In dense terrain you introduce errors every time you step around an obstacle. Alternating left and right deviations minimizes your distance off azimuth, but doesn't address the fact that early errors are more significant. Obstacles are never uniform sizes either, so with experience you may walk left around two small ones then right around a larger one. In the end it comes back to accuracy.
If your destination is a shopping mall, then orienting the map and eyeballing an azimuth will likely work. You're close to civilization to begin with and the parking lot is a huge target. Even if you miss it, odds are good that you'll be able to see it from wherever you end up. Similar arguments can be made for really huge landmarks like lakes and mountains. In fact, if your destination is linear like a road or coastline you should deliberately choose an azimuth that is wide of your target, because you'll know whether to turn left or right when you get there. (It's a lot easier to navigate to a road then turn left and walk down it to your destination than going directly there.)
In dense or featureless terrain accuracy is more important because errors are more difficult to recover from. The same applies at long distances. It's not uncommon for people to continue blindly shooting azimuths to trees not realizing that they're already lost, or the next best thing to it. (Equally as bad, walking to the wrong tree at least once in the process.) If you pull that when you can't see any landmarks you'll be stuck.
Most common casual hiking scenarios are somewhere in the middle. You can't afford to shoot from the hip, but you don't need complete precision either. You may carefully navigate long legs of the trip and wing it for short sections.
