Can one devise a restored orthography to recapture that consistency?

Compared to the current English orthography, Anglo Saxon - the source of 85% of our most frequetly used words - had a consistent spelling. We still spell many of these words the same way, but we do not pronounce them the same as they were pronounced prior to 1400.

The traditional speling has been characterized as historic rather than phonemic because it represents an older pronunciation -- not the current one.

Historically, Anglo Saxon vowels were the same as continental Europe: the long vowels were a: e: i: o: u: not the diphthongs ei i: ai ou iu. The long a was ah, the long e was close to /ei/ or the final vowel in resumé or naiveté and the long o was a sound close to "awe". 

It is often said that Language is a graveyard of dead metaphors. A similar statement can be made about almost every aspect of written language.

The shwa or turned e [] is represented below as a'
In old English, it was often represented as e or a.
 

Anglo Saxon	Sound Spelling CCS	English	Sound Spelling CCS
break bake beer deep curs stan diacon - servant	bre:a'k ba:ka' (bah-kuh) be:a' de:op, dea'p c'rs stan (staan) dia'kon	break bake beer deep curse stone deacon	breik (breh-eek) beik be:a' (bir) dip c'rs sto'n di'kn
ere, eyra, oor, ear earl cra:we	e:a' e:a' crawa'	ear earl crow	ei:a' (ir - eer) cro'
do:tter (ON) kuga, kue, cow hete hoer heorte heap feed heah (har-ON)	dotr kau heta' har hart he:a'p fe:a'd he:a'	daughter cow hate hair heart heap feed high	dota' (dotr) kau heit her hart hi'p fi'd h'y