All right, it sounds like they have not improved anything then, which is too bad. It’s so silly, they essentially just do not recognise that “.scriv” is a format we can make use of, even though we declare it properly.
Well, as to the other method, I shared some tips on streamlining it a while back. The main ingredient is putting your automatic project backup folder into your preferred sync service’s folder, so that those .zip files from the Mac are always there when you need them. That leaves only having to remember to export from Scrivener when putting down the mobile device. For me that is the limitation, because I primarily use Linux which has no Finder with which to attach to the device over the local network. In your case, you could just load the device from your Finder sidebar and pull the latest project down from the mobile device directly if you forget to .zip.
I do think zipping is preferable though, because it means having all of your editing stages stored in one place in chronological order, giving you a lot of safety net to work with.