Yeah, that's what I thought Nick meant, too. That seems like it'd be hard to use and would require pressing the key down for a good bit to get what you want. Also requires you to use turn-to-cursor while you're doing this...
But solutions using the mouse don't really work well regardless of whether you're aiming at the cursor or not, because it really messes with your camera. That's the reason it "works" in the video in the OP - the camera controls are not the same.
I've tried using ctrl-right-click to lock the shields to a relative facing, btw, and spent some time with it trying to get used to it. It didn't feel useful at all, unfortunately, and *did* feel really finicky and annoying to use.