Pies-
Yeah, before the introduction of the smaller hitboxes this method wasn't possible, but I already was engineering on squids long time before that so I am too used to the jumping to stop using it, and with enough practice you fall like once every 100 jumps or so.
However, I am using this method when the back gun is included in the repair cycle I specified above.
When the back gun needs chem spray or a repair before jumping down, it is sometimes hard to perform the jump from right in front of the gun right after you turned your view to the left to repair it while still moving without a stop, so I do the "jump" you specified then. It is a lot safer, I can guarantee too
Also, about the hull structure hitbox things with getting stuck down there, I have emailed muse about it literally on day 1 of the patch that broke it. They said they will look into it, but no results yet... maybe if just everyone getting frustrated by it writes an email as soon as they read this they will bump it up in the priority list a bit.