Information, efficiency, editability

I'm still trying to piece together a production theory for directing that makes sense to me. First, what I don't want/like—

Typical coverage shooting same scene over and over again from different angles: shoot wide, then CUs, then reverses, etc.
Why: inefficient, hard to maintain energy, don't like the way it looks like made-for-TV movies.

Editing in the camera: have everything previsualized and then shoot
Why: too hard, I don't think that way, not enough editing options

Standard A/B roll appproach
Looks like cheap video

Assumptions:

>Visually-driven
>Not dialogue driven

Helpful concepts to date:

Information: make sure that you shoot what's important for a sequence. A good example is the dead spinner shot. The first time I shot it, I did it as two shots: one of the dead spinner and one of Ben looking. This didn't work. It's important to see them together since that's the point of the shot: Ben sees the dead spinner. At a certain point, you just have to make sure you're shooting the information needed.

Efficiency: use as few shots as possible. Like Stu Maschiwtz' analysis of the shot from Close Encounters in which we pan over from men looking at planes to a new shot of Francois Truffault. Just one sweeping shot instead of a bunch of little shots.

Editability: shoot to give yourself flexibility in editing. Actually this can contrast with efficiency. In the above described Close Encounters shot, you're stuck with the timing of the shot unless you want to do an ugly cutaway. So that's where you might get something like the Spielberg "hinge shot." Example: Raiders of the lost ark. Camera pushes in to Harrison Ford grasping at idol. Cutaway to assistant. Now camera pulls back out. The hinge is the cutaway. There's flexibility there because you can go to the cutaway, but don't have to cut there. So editability means shooting but keeping in mind places where you can cut in and out. Maybe you have someone walking by to create a natural wipe. You can cut there or not. Or maybe there's a sound to cut on, like the shot in Dr. Zhivago where the doctor drops the washer on the microscope >clink!< and then we cut to a streetcar. So what are the audio/visual points where it might make a nice cut and won't just look like you're going to b-roll?