I seem to remember reading somewhere that you used to work "actual size" for our British mags. Was there a marked change in working at this size to working 1.5 to twice up? As an aspiring artist myself, I still find it hard to let go of the minute details that would probably vanish when printed anyway.
I did work at print size simply because I didn't know anything about the production process before beginning to work in comics. I didn't really have a problem adjusting to drawing larger-- in fact it was easier. I actually found moving to the smaller US standard more problematic.