I am indeed not accusing the Rev of “dishonest practice”, but some would, or at least come close to it.

A Ximenean would pronounce him very “unfair”.

But words can, of course, have different senses in different contexts. I might say, down the pub, “That fellow Whiting is very devious”, which would be pejorative. “That crossword setter Araucaria is very devious” would be complimentary!

My first thought here was…but no, I’d better leave that till later.

So on second thoughts – I agree with you entirely when you say you would expect any cryptic crossword to contain many ‘indirect courses or means’. In fact I would say a cryptic crossword must contain many ‘indirections’. ‘Cryptic’ practically means ‘indirect’.

I was struggling with how to say what I meant when Sils intervened. The best I can come up with, in retrospect, is ‘indirect indirectnesses’. Not pretty, I think, but precise.

Perhaps I should stop pretending to have no opinions. First I must say nothing in this puzzle gave me any great difficulty in solving it. But I don’t consider a puzzle completed until I’ve parsed everything. (It’s part of the pleasure.)

1.I have no problem with this type of themed puzzle. In fact I like it.

2.Indirect anagrams. The article in Wiki contains much of interest but in full it has much that is distracting. The relevant part here can be stated as “Indirect anagrams are not used in the majority of cryptic crosswords.” Well I can understand why. Another source gives an example: Measure of broken tree(4). (ACRE or MILE). I don’t mind that there are two possible solutions, it’s ‘tree’ I dislike. Nearly as bad as ‘plant’, whose appearance in a clue always gives me a sinking feeling. The source classes this invalid. I don’t presume to go so far, but I don’t like it.

In this puzzle I had got LANCASTER (fine) and YORKIST (with misgivings) so I come to “4. Emblem of Lancaster moved altar back(7)” Well ‘altar back’ is clearly REREDOS, a word I only know from crosswords. Hello! What we’ve got here is an indirect anagram! First I’ve ever seen! There’ll be trouble over this. So next we have “3. Yorkist element rendered differently(9)” Well differently looks like an anagrind but No! It’s the definition! And here’s another hidden anagram! Two of them side by side and symetrically related to the theme. Brilliant! The man’s a genius.

3. Indirect hidden answer. Hmm! Never seen that before either. Don’t think I like it. The man’s doing it on purpose! At least he has the decency to include ‘the’ to resolve the ambiguity.

4. YORKIST Can’t parse this at all. And he’s at it again. I’m afraid I have, with regret, to pronounce this invalid.

5. “Syrian” He’s at it again. Completely unnecessary.

6. “Snail male? I would say not: it’s hermaphrodite” The clueing doesn’t really work but it’s a very nice joke. I’ll let him off with a caution.

7. “brooms” Again unnecessary, but he forced me to Chambers where I learned something interesting.

Overall verdict? Not too difficult, not too easy, lots of fun.

My first thought here is why you have used ‘indirection’ rather than ‘misdirection’ Do you know something which I do not?
Since it is not a word I know I checked it in Chambers which gives it but only from WS as “indirect course or means, dishonest practice”. Assuming you are not accusing A. of the latter then I would certainly expect any cryptic crossword to contain many ‘indirect courses or means’.
The more the better!