It's also likely that standby will become a monthly block, no more than once a year, in the fairly near future. That will ease things for those who live far away (we have pilots in France, Spain, even South Africa!), though for those of us who live on the border of the two-hour limit (not one and a half hours) it might be a bit of a pain if you get called out a lot.
Your interpretation of the roster is about right. The fatigue problems come when you have a Far East trip followed inmediately by a USA one; the jet lag is not for the faint-hearted! That said, like Pnooze, I infinitely prefer the long-haul lifestyle to short-haul, and things would have to get a lot worse before I'd be persauded to leave (there are family factors in my case, too).