73AB73, you say that 5/4-5/3 sounds like a slog! You should try flying for one of our EU carriers. 6/2-6/3 is the norm. Sometimes just 36 hours off in 14 days. A 24hour period, midnight local to midnight local, given as a day off and so on. Easy flying is easy flying.
If you had flown for easyjet some years ago you would have done much the same.
If you can find a better system, go find it, then tell us about it.