Personally, I don't mind the "chair yoga"! Its about the only exercise I get, this game is addictive!
I have set my "X" axis for a fast curve, allows me to just barely slide to the side and see around head rest. Then again I couldn't really make hat switch views work for me as I have some disabilities. Some motor skills don't work so well because of it. I honestly don't know how you guys did it with hat switch use as it seems no where close to what I get with TRIR. Play around with the curves, they can be used to balance out the calories burned. Who needs exercise any way.
It does take some getting used to though. I have True view and object relative view disabled. So when I lean left and turn my head to left I am actually looking to the right side of the seat. While tracking a con though, it seems more natural than just leaning and turning for a scan on your 6. Just sit on a runway offline and see what I mean, don't want you to die while pre occupied,lol. Oh and you can still adjust your head position in TRIR, just pause the tracking , set your position and hit F10, same as usual. At least for the looking forward head position. I also use a look forward button to slave my view to gun sight position when looking around the nose.