Reducing non-games does hold a great deal of appeal.
How does double sleeving the cube make these viable for you? I am trying to figure out the connection, but I'm coming up blank.
If the cube is single-sleeved, players have to touch a bare card in order to transform it. If the cube is double sleeved, players would only have to touch the inner-sleeve (provided it's transparent).
It doesn't quite fix the "not knowing the backside" problem, but if only the lands which ETB tapped are used, one could just tell their players that the MDFCs enter tapped when transformed.