Regarding directionality in down clues I tend to go with something that I think Don M mentions in his book. To paraphrase, you can easily argue that the answer to the clue is the word written conventionally (i.e. horizontally) it’s just that, in the case of a down clue, when you come to fill the answer in the grid you have to write it vertically. But that doesn’t preclude the setter from also taking the other view and writing a clue which does rely on the fact that the answer is written vertically. Anything goes (almost).