I agree - the relationship between the neck, the raglans and the front edges is complicated! I loved the jersey that I made previously, but it was very simple and knitted in one piece, including the neckband and the button bands at the front. It's very cosy, but the thing I would change for another pattern is the sleeve increases: I felt there were too many and there was too much bulkiness under the arms.
The short rows for the neck shaping sound interesting - it would be good to hear about your experiments :)
Well done on the curie vote, that's excellent!
If you mean your striped cardigan, than I am with you, it looks very nice and the neckline is much better than mine (was). The sleeve problem I have every time. I guess it happens because I know my arms are quite thick and I am afraid to make the sleeves to small and I overcompensate... I have no idea why I do it with every!!! ragalan I make. The sleeves are always to wide. Hopefully I will learn to do it differently someday.
And with the short rows... I may have already another idea ... I thought about crochet to rise the neckline at the back. I researched and the short row method only works if you work the short rows at the beginning.
https://crazyhands.net/top-down-raglan-sweater-pattern-with-cables/
I don’t think it is easy to incorporate the short rows afterwards. I will brood over this a bit...
And yes, the @curie vote is amazing and I am always sooooo happy to get one (I guess I am a bit externally motivated - shame on me)
The stripey jersey was bottom up with set in sleeves, so easy to shape the neckline. I was talking about the raglan jersey I made in January using instructions from J.s Knit and Purl jam. It was very simple with no additional neck shaping, but the casualness of the style meant that was okay. I've read about short row neck shaping, but I haven't tried it yet. What I love about these sorts of jumpers is the minimal sewing up 😊