Under the old procedures, had this not been a TAA procedure I would
have
accepted no lower than 2,800 and done the course reversal, making it
clear to ATC that I would do the course reversal.

What is inconsistent about any of that?

As stated, sounds good to me. ;-) But the key phrase is "had this not
been a TAA procedure". Your earlier statements seemed to indicate you
were not drawing a distinction between a TAA and a random RNAV
approach.

Here's what I infer from your above paragraph:

With a TAA approach (such as the one under discussion), even under the
old procedure, it is ok to be cleared direct to the straight-in IAF at
an altitude below the sector altitude, as long as the altitude is
compatible with the minimum intermediate altitude and at or above MVA.

If you disagree with that, then I'd like to explore further why this
might be so,