Is this behavior in api & integrations expected?

Could you say more about how you measured the result? I want to try this but I am not sure what success would look like.

Adding a small note: the same idea applies on mobile, just with a bit more attention to tap targets.

Tried this on a staging copy first and it behaved exactly as described. Confident enough to roll it to production now.

One caveat for larger communities: keep an eye on the indexes. At a few thousand rows the difference is night and day.

We ran into the same situation last quarter. What worked for us was starting small and only adding complexity when a real need showed up.