Water with plain water first before fertilizing?

[Shadeflower]

agreed.
The velamen is like a sponge. If you dip the sponge in one bucket it will quickly absorb the liquid. Once it's full and you move it to a second bucket it won't absorb any more. If the second bucket is your fertilized water it would not be absorbed as much.
The advice varies from water first, then fertilize, fertilize first then flush or like you say use a low amount all the time. The tricky part is knowing how much for each one to use if one wants to use a regular amount as it varies.
If one is not sure then fertilizing first and flushing out any excess shortly after might be a good way.
You could even argue that it might be a better way as the only way of finding what each orchid likes otherwise is through trial and error. But watering twice and flushing each pot is more work than just watering once.

I think to start with fertizling and flushing out the excess is a good approach but as a collection grows and watering time increases it makes more sense to try and figure out how do less watering.