I hated Thangles for pretty much all the reasons you stated. I don't think any other method of paper piecing HST is going to be much of an improvement.
The biggest advantage of Thangles over the square methods is you use the same size strips as you use for the rest of your project. The only other method I know of to make HST from rectangles is Sally Schneider's Gizmo. She's not taking orders until September though.