parabellum
"There's nothing to be gained in a transport category airplane by holding the stick back while slowing to sub-reverser speeds, or by holding the nose off, while landing."
Beg to differ old chap.
In Eastern Europe, especially before the iron curtain was scrapped, the runways, were made of good old concrete blocks. These blocks were very often poorly matched together making the surface quiet rough. In the middle of winter, ice would gather on the protruding edges and make the surfaces of these runways very rough indeed. So are you going to tell me if you were operating into such places you would "forward on that yoke" and putting great weight on the nose wheels at high speed? If you tried that technique at speed on landing, or t/o for that matter, damage would be done to the aircraft and the crew quiet possibly hurt, as some of those runways were that rough.
"Obviously applying reverse when the nose wheel is still off the runway in a rear engined plane is a complete NO NO. "
Really?
With care and within elevator authority, there is no problem.
I am aware the reverse thrust is not factored in performance calculations. However you will, if you fly for long enough and far enough, come across situations e.g. slippery icy runways, reported or not, where reverse thrust is the only thing that is going to decelerate the aircraft, initially at least. IMHO the only way to operate reverse thrust in those conditions, is to have the engines "spooled up". That can only be effectively carried out in time, by touching down with power I.E., engines spooled up and engaging reverse thrust immediately the air brakes are deployed and the nose wheel off the ground. You will "burn up" a surprising amount of concrete, if you wait until the nose wheel is on the ground, then attempt to engage reverse thrust when the engines are at idle.