Semi-hydro is a very simple form of hydroponics yes. All the principles of hydroponics should still apply, using inorganic media, providing lots of air and providing all nutrients regularly with the water.
The main disadvantage has been pointed out by camille using recirculating systems. Diseases will spread amongst orchids as they are spread via water.
Otherwise they would work great but what most people resort to using is using
mistking sprayer systems that rain on the orchids from above. There are a few members I have seen use this with great success.
I use self watering pots which I would recommend you have a look at too.
I tried flood and drain for some orchids once but I gave u rather quickly, they tend to outgrow their space and the maintenance long term doesn't seem worth it.
Ebb and flow is good for fast growing plants, less so for slow growing plants, like the system will still algae up as fast but the plants will be growing so much slower so it will seem like excessive work for little reward using ebb and flow.
As to stopping flowering on phals to produce bigger blooms the following year - yes this has been done but more by accident from what I gather.
I have seen a picture of a phal that was taller than a small mexican man.
The way they did this was to prevent the phal blooming 2 years straight by providing excess temperatures.
In orchids there has not been much research done on the lighting hours, I suspect lighting hours can delay flowering too but we do know that high temperatures inhibit flowering on phals.
Commercial nurseries use this to their advantage and grow phals over 26 degrees C - this promotes vegetative growth, once they want them to flower they lower temps and the phal is allowed to start flowering.
As to your question on whether orchids will absorb more nutrients using hydroponics - in theory yes - but there is a big BUT associated with it. Most of the time when you switch an orchid grown in bark to hydroponics the plant will suffer stress and set the lant back. It's not uncommon for a plant to be stressed like this to sulk for a good year. So in theory yes but in practice you will find that initially you will have to deal with the associated stress too! For me hydropnics is worth it long term but I understand hydroponics well and you probably know too that soil is more forgiving - hydroponics needs to be more accurate in the nutrients we provide or deficiencies will show more readily. So in theory yes, but in practice it is in fact far easier to make things worse.
Another thing to consider is that orchids as a general rule need 1/10 of nutrients than most other plants. Nutrients are just as important but just in far smaller quantities.
Most would use tap water for a hydroponic system which contains all the calcium that most plants need.
But for orchids this is 10x too much.
So tap water and hydroponics is a big no no for me when it comes to orchids making having big reservoirs of RO or rain water a further hassle putting people off the idea.
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Different types of Hydroponics
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