Philip, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the hardware interface you suggested - many have done it much the same way. You can get it down to one octal register (74hc574) if you use 4 bit mode and write only. Actually you only need 6 bits - D0..3, EN, RS and r/*w is tied to 0v. Since you don't poll the ready bit, you use fixed delays.

I've also used an i2c interface for the lcds - but I find the philips 8574 chip is probably more expensive than a small micro or going to a larger micro with more i/o. Nevertheless, it forms a very simple interface.