To switch from vertical split to horizontal split fast in Vim

Vim mailing list says (re-formatted for better readability):

To change two vertically split
windows to horizonally split

Ctrl–w t Ctrl–w K

Horizontally to vertically:

Ctrl–w t Ctrl–w H

Explanations:

Ctrl–w t makes the first (topleft) window current

Ctrl–w K moves the current window to full-width at the very top

Ctrl–w H moves the current window to full-height at far left

Note that the t is lowercase, and the K and H are uppercase.

Also, with only two windows, it seems like you can drop the Ctrl–w t part because if you’re already in one of only two windows, what’s the point of making it current?