Unnecessary abbreviation

I mentioned earlier a review of Mark Chancey's recent book and it gives me the opportunity to make a minor gripe. The reviewer begins "Mark Chancey (hereafter C.) . . ." and then for the rest of the review it is "C. says" etc. Is it just me or do others find this unnecessary abbreviation, even of authors' names, rather annoying? Does it really take so much longer to write "Chancey" than to write "C."? If one is annoyed by having to write that each time, one could easily write a little macro, or do a find and replace or similar. It certainly doesn't take any longer to read "Chancey" than "C."; in fact to read the actual name is quicker because you don't keep stopping to think, "Now who is the author again?" I take this review just as an example of this bizarre bit of contemporary style; it's now pretty common. Much too common for my liking.

Update (Wednesday, 20.55): See several useful comments on this post and especially Brandon Wason's remark that it is apparently obligatory for the BMCR, which I had forgotten. All the more reason for one to complain about it, of course. To encapsulate what I think is problematic and surprising about this usage: it is note form creeping into published prose, remarkable in an electronic era where one does not even need physically to type out every common word. This kind of thing should be becoming less common now and not more.