Garments confuse me

I've recklessly cast on for a pattern-free t-shirt made of ladder-style ribbon yarn. It's on #8 needles, not huge ones, but still definitely something to wear over a tank top. This is all IF I can find more of the stuff (I only bought one ball, the LYS is closed for vacation). But I'm enjoying the slippery cool not-remotely-like-wool feel of it. It's basically just for practice.

As I was looking for directions/ideas, I came across this nice striped raglan. It's cute, it's by a good knitter, but these directions for the yoke sort of amazed me:

2. First decrease round: knit 2, knit 2 together all the way around.

3. Knit for about 2.5 inches.

4. Second decrease round: Knit 1, knit 2 together all the way around.

5. Knit for about 2.5 inches.

6. Third decrease round: Knit 2, knit 2 together all the way around.

7. Knit for another inch or so and cast off in picot edging.


Those are some severe decrease rounds! Can anyone explain why it's a good idea to do these 75% decreases every 2.5 inches? Doesn't that cause some ruffling/rippling (yes; I think you can see it in the bottom picture on that page), and couldn't the same decrease be done way more smoothly? Also,why would one finish with an inch of straight knitting?

I also went to my second-most-local yarn store and saw this sweater in the window and kind of fell in love. Bought the book, bought a ball of the yarn. Noted the slightly rounder cable pattern in this other sweater and started thinking about substituting it in.

Worse problem: the pattern is only written for medium (and large), and it's pretty clearly because the designer really wants six (eight) of those cable repeats. So I guess I get to wing it on how to make a small. Four repeats with a couple of extra ribs on each side should work fine; but the designer didn't bother to do the math, and that's annoying. Dear designer, why do you hate me so?