Personally, I find it harder to type things abbreviated. If I know what I want to say, I type faster just writing it. It doesn't help that not only society but popular media industries promote this phenomenon of abbreviations, such as "N'Sync' or Britney Spears' song "I'm a Slave 4 U" (that's promoting other things as well, but that's beside the point).

And reading words that are scrambled, but leaving the first and last letter intact, is a trick from way, way back. Remember when you were first learning English, and you had exercises with a common theme that had scrambled words? Such as a worksheet with pictures of lunch items on it, and you had to unscramble words having to do that that theme? You've been learning to do this since you were very young, whether you realize it or not. Several letter-character languages can do it too.