It does work alright in practice, but it also adds an additional step to the whole rigamarole/clusterfrick that is aerial rescue. And I never clip the victim to me, but that's a matter we could discuss nearly endlessly, and would be better addressed in another thread, perhaps
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But your alternative has been advocated by a majority of the members of the USFS Technical Advisory Group for some years...I and a few like-minded holdouts held it off for a while, but have now given in. Frankly, I much prefer the idea of making it as handy as possible for a rescuer to get me down. In 25+ years of climbing, wearing the chest harness has so seldom given me any negative issues that I find people whining about how much of a hassle they are to wear just plain noise without cause.
Personally, in point of fact I find the chest harness a useful accessory. It gives me an additional place to hang certain bits of gear that I'm actively using/installing/removing.
Perhaps my favorite use for it is to stand leaning over a rope bag, clip the rope I want to flake into the bag through the chest harness biner. Then I can just hand over hand the rope down into the bag, with the rope fairleading through the biner on the harness at the center of my chest. It's by far the fastest, easiest way to stow a rope. Works just as well for throwlines, back into a folding cube or bag...even the little stow bags go much quicker this way.
I'll continue to wear one.
