Hi Pilou, as Micheal replied already, these controls are just an habit.
It took me months to get used to it (when the scroll wheel wasn't working yet in Lightwave) and it's hard to let go :-)
My mouse also has a wheel which, ehm, snaps at certain degrees, so it's less accurate.

Michael, i'' try the hide trick. Sometimes the sollution is so simple eh? :-)

I'm abou to finish my model with the flipped normals (and some other strange behaviour). I'll post the file when it's done.