Interesting.
I definitely don’t ever make a reference catalog plate like that. I know what most parts look like already, so I don’t see much reason to do that.
Usually I just pull the half-dozen most relevant bins off the shelf, stack them around me, and grab parts from their bags as needed. (My storage system is plastic shoeboxes and ziploc bags, similar to the LUG supply.) Sometimes, though, I’ll fill a tray (e.g. a box lid) with the kind of parts I expect to use, making an unsorted mini-collection from which to build. That works pretty well for things like greebling where I expect to use a limited palette of parts. It can be faster to build from a jumble of parts than from bags, if the jumble is very relevant. It does lead to a lot of cleanup time, though, so I prefer to work directly from sorted when I can.
I once read about a microscale architecture builder – I don’t remember if it’s the same one you mention – who made up a little kit of architecture-specific universal parts to travel with. I believe it was in one of those toolbox compartment box thingies, was mostly one or two colors, and really focused on microscale-archtecture essential parts. I thought that was very clever. I’ve often been tempted to make up a “greeble kit” similarly, with an extra supply of the parts I mentioned in this thread, separate from my main sorted supply. Then I could just grab that kit at greebling time, instead of hunting down the relevant bags over and over.
On the other hand, I try not to get complacent and greeble everything the same way. I prefer to experiment with new combinations whenever possible, and having to dig out a new kit of parts from sorted each time helps keep things fresh, maybe.