Well I don't agree with you about American spellings, because (a) I prefer them, (b) many of them actually predate "English-English" spellings. Railing against American spellings in a game founded by a Brit in America for his American wife smacks of imperialism... But I do agree about the conscious strategy of eliminating letters rather than finding letters. For the last few times I've started with ADIEU: that either nails or eliminates four out of five vowels. After that, it's all about eliminating common consonants. We all have our little ways...