If you’re taught to shift rows, and you already comfortably think in kana — yes, I think that’s equally good. Some of the materials I’ve tried learning from when I got started with the language didn’t do that, and instead described each case as special. That’s what I didn’t like.

That said, part of the challenge to myself with this article was to allow someone to learn Japanese conjugation even if they have zero knowledge of the language (even no kana). So that’s another constraint influencing my choice. I also wanted to have the visual “gluing” throughout the article as an aid for intuition, so that’s another reason I used romaji.