Nothing wrong with HST, as long as its done right it can work well.
I personally like to use a combination of HST and LST to achieve the type of plant I want.
I know some who use just HST to achieve a similar result to me. Topping a plant isn't necessarily a bad thing, if the plant is happy and healthy the delay caused is minimal to almost none as far as I am concerned.
You can easily take a cutting to flower in 6 to 8 weeks with it being bigger than a 20L fabric pot, trained and topped and over 30cm tall from the medium.
Most likely closer to 6 weeks. Around 8 weeks if working from seed.
You should yield at least 80g dry from such a plant too, a good strain could yield more.
I have been helping some newbie growers out, they got some cuttings and 4 weeks in the cuttings were almost ready for flower - just waiting for the plant to grow a bit more but its already been topped, trained and has had the leaves defoliated multiple times.
Sometimes doing all of this can actually speed up the growth of the plant I feel - although this is based on my opinion and not actual hard facts and science. The plants really seem to explode after having the leaves cleaned up and the smaller branches at the bottom removed.
It no longer needs to use energy to maintain that, can use all of the energy on new growth.