DJM, in my humble opinion, what you say MAKES Larry's point rather than countering it.
He's saying that little poke-in-the-eye gimmicks can't be counted on BECAUSE they are gimmicks and ignore/miss the principle behind the move. For instance, how would Tohei do that with a 6'4" uke? Kick him in the knee to bend him over, and then poke at his eye?
What's problematic here to me is that the simplest technique is to me the superior one, if for no other reason than that the more things you put into it, the greater the chance for error in what is already an unpredictable situation.
1) The Tohei example depends on too much. (I will say though that I've done no-touch kokyu/irimi-nages which are beautiful when you strike exactly toward the eyes to get an autonomic reflex where they throw themselves back,but you can't always count on hitting that anymore than finding the pain point in an old-fashioned yonkyo.)
2) I've seen Chiba Sensei in a number of videos do the technique you mention, but again it's dangerous in the sense that it's not efficient - once they're going down face-down, why do you need to reverse it? An unnecessary move,,a little show-boat-y to me. It almost require a very violent front-down move and an equally violent backward response to uke to work. Again, imho, simpler=better.
I agree with some of what you're saying, but not all
My main point of disagreement(!) is that the Tohei Sensei thing IS a gimmick.. If it doesn't work the move turns into a regular irimi nage - i.e. same principles, merely with a tweak to make it potentially easier..
Incidentally the version of irimi nage that was shown was the tenkan version - head is nicely in place for the poke..
As for Chiba Sensei, I actually agree with you, but I know that my Aikido is limited enough for him to be using the same principles, and that I'm simply not seeing them..
On a general level I'll also agree that simpler tends to be better, but in specific circumstances more complex can be better. It all comes down to nage not choosing the technique, but uke.. If complex is what's demanded by uke's attack, posture, size and maai then complex is what you do...
My 2p worth