Okay so I've actually done this on a couple playthroughs and yeah, the loop works but you're right that the pre-loop grind is rough. The tickling phase is real.
Here's the thing though - you don't need to wait for the loop to feel viable. Grab the unarmed perks that boost damage output (the ones that increase base damage and critical strike chance) early, and honestly the biggest quality-of-life fix is smithing your bracers/gauntlets up to Daedric or Ebony as soon as you can. That alone makes a huge difference before you're scaling into the stratosphere. Pair it with the perk that boosts heavy armor - wait, no, I'm thinking of light armor - the one that reduces incoming damage based on armor rating. That helps you tank while you're still doing middling damage.
The Restoration loop itself, once you hit it, does make combat trivial in a "punch a dragon to death in 3 hits" way. It's genuinely hilarious for like 10 hours, then yeah, it gets boring. I ended up respeccing out of it halfway through because one-shotting everything removes the actual gameplay loop.
If you want to keep it fun, try pairing it with a no-fast-travel or survival mode ruleset so at least the journey between fights matters. Or just cap your scaling at a reasonable breakpoint instead of going full cheese - you can still be absurdly strong without being untouchable.
Alteration for damage mitigation is solid. The perk that boosts armor spells stacks nicely with heavy armor perks, so that synergy works.
What difficulty are you planning to run? That changes how long the pre-loop slog actually matters.
