I’m not particularly happy about the way this works either. For me, rotating text on a sheet of paper is not the same as making it face you.
In the following scene, the upper and lower text on the left side of the surface are of a style that has the setting “Orient text toward reader when viewed from behind” turned OFF. This is strictly viewing from the front and one can easily rotate text 180°.
The upper and lower text on the right side of the surface is that same text copied and moved and then assigned a style that has the setting turned ON. The upper text flips 180° automatically. Still, this is viewed from the front and there is nothing about this that is “viewing from behind”.
This is what it looks like from behind:
I still don’t get it why anyone would want to have text illegible on a piece of paper…
Ref. discussion earlier this year:
… and still like @stevebaer’s best: