This sounds reasonable to me. As long as the presser foot is up, and you are not tugging, why not?

The reason you don't pull the thread out backwards is because it can but doesn't always leave lint in the tension discs and that can cause problems. That is what I was told many many many years ago.

I didn't read thru all of these answers, but after a quick glance I 'm amazed I didn't see more about the 830 and thread going backwards. Pulling thread backwards can also ruin the take up lever check spring. The 830 has an additional sensor on this spring which is attached to the spring with small plastic clips. Pulling the thread backwards can break the plastic clips disabling the sensor. You can turn off the sensor and sew normally should this occur, but you don't want to break anything in the machine.

I didn't know this! It makes sense to me. I'll start being more careful. Thanks.

I see there are a zillion replies but wanted to add my 2 cents worth anyway. When I was taking a teachers sewing class the instructor told us to snip the top thread when we were ready to change it and pull it out from the bottom, the reason being our tension runs from top to bottom, if we pull from the top, which I had been doing for over 30 years, we were going against the tension of the machine and if we had a quirky machine we could completely throw off the tension, not an easy thing to readjust. I'd never had a problem but it made perfect sense to me so now that's how I take my top thread out and it is what I teach my students to do as well. I feel more secure knowing I'm not pulling against the tension on the new computerized machines because I can't service them myself like I can the mechanical machines.

I was told by a Bernina rep that you clip your thread and pull it forward. If you take it out pulling from the top that it could ruin your tension discs.