Thank you for offering to contribute to ODK Tables!!! 
I think your solution might be an improvement over the current method. Once we have the ODK 2 TSC formed I think this would be a great topic for discussion. ODK 2 TSC Election - 2018-09-03
If I recall correctly one of the reasons the auto scroll was not chosen in the past was people were unclear which of the items in the list had been chosen. While the item was in the current list being displayed people did not realize it. People did not want the drop down displayed unless they specifically clicked on it. Therefore the option was to color the item somehow or just put it on the top always.
Either way I think we could probably come up with a more elegant solution and look forward to your help contributing to the process of finding a user friendly answer. I do agree that a page reload does seem overkill and scrolling to the right spot might be better. However, not confusing the user is also a prime concern.