I also maintain a huge shell history, but in my experience fzf-ing through it becomes a lot harder when it’s terse and unreadable.

But sure, there’s a tension between readability and brain-to-command throughput that’s always been there.

The way you proposed is a bit too write-only for my taste, and the argument that you “had to learn it and now you’re muscle memory bound to it” is applicable to you only and does not preclude a better way from existing.