Actually, it works for the large majority. If it doesn't work for a kid, he can go learn phonics. What's wrong with tayloring the method to the individual?
For those it does work, it results in faster reading. Yes, and so is with the Chinese ideograms. This is the main limit for the cultural advancement in China. Few people can read more than a thousand of words and to master thousands you need to become a scholar. Anyway the ideograms are better suited for "look-and-say / whole-word" method as they derive from actual pictures.
The whole word learning system isn't an ideogram system. It's a kind of a hybrid between that and a phonetic system. It's about recognizing groups of letters that combine into words, rather than literally whole words, except for very simple ones.
Some people have better image memory and can read faster but those who could not are often more talented and do not deserve to be crippled.
The vast majority can learn to read this way, and in the long run it results in faster reading.
Well this is the difference between the true alphabet and ideograms. Once you associate letters or group of letters your can read almost EVERY word, even hundreds of thousands of words!
Yes, but the key is to work in groups of letters & simple root words & endings, rather than sounding out letters. The latter approach, while perhaps making it easier to learn to read quickly, in the long run creates other problems with spelling and reading speed.