Okay. The gist of the conversation question/opinion is insert logic in to draw all image layers right side up or draw them all inverted and flip when required(cairo considers top-left to be coord x=0, y=0).
So if you're doing some graphing thing, x=0 being bottom left is infinitely more logical. I kind of want to draw everything right-side-up despite it being more calculations than flipping.
One introduces complexity in the drawing. The other introduces complexity on handling layers and compositing them.