This is not the same as equalizing your ears or clearing your mask, where any of multiple acceptable methods are fine as long as they work.
A buoyant ascent is NOT a controlled ascent. Even though you are successfully controlling it anyway so far, you can too easily slip over into an uncontrolled rapid ascent. This is even more pronounced in the shallower portion of the water column, where the pressure differential per foot (and the expansion of air, and the associated risk) increases as you ascend. And in your case, since you are using air to ascend, I now suspect it is more likely that you might still have air remaining in your BCD that you could access with a lower dump valve, rather than the inflator hose or a shoulder dump. You also mention "less work." If swimming to the surface is difficult, you are too negatively buoyant. That may mean too much weight, or it may just mean you need more air in your BCD. But don't swing to the other extreme, with too much air as the remedy for too little.
So I am not a tech diver, nor do I dive BPW, so maybe there is another school of thought when training in those contexts. But the only place we learn/practice a buoyant ascent in PADI recreational courses is a very specific scenario for Rescue Diver.
Do you use a dive computer? If you download the logs, I am curious what is says your buoyant ascent rates are. Most computers will redline at 30 ft/min, either for the whole ascent, or at least for the shallower portion.