"Also car has great visibility forward and fuck all backwards, rear view mirror is like double the size of the rear window (in the reflection, not side by side)."
Yeah - this is exactly why you should reverse park. When you come out again into potentially a stream of traffic, if you reverse park, you're coming out forwards, you can see them & they can see you. If you forward park you have literally no idea what you're backing out into.
This is the way