My coach last summer...
...noted that most of the Big Boys on the ATP are at least experimenting with some form of the abbreviated serve. Note that it's not an either/or...there is a whole continuum of serves from Radically Abbreviated to Lots of Flowers and Curlicues. I'm going with a More Abbreviated serve, and it's working for me, because I subscribe to the Less is More, Simpler is Better School of tennis...and ski racing, and bike racing, etc. A good example of the success of this method, to take another stroke, would be Agassi's ground strokes...either side. Incredibly compact backswing, beautiful follow through, lots of depth, pace, and control.
One other thing my coach, who is a really smart guy, noted, is that the best servers seem to get a lot of stuff done with the hitting arm prep before much of the toss/release part of the stroke happens. Is this at all like the value of early prep on a ground stroke so that when the ball arrives in the hitting zone it isn't a Complete and Very Nasty Surprise? I think so. The way beginners are taught, classically, is to start the toss and backswing at the same time. Using this technique, depending on how abbreviated..or not...and quick...or not the backswing is, the toss might have to be really high to be anywhere near the hitting zone by the time the racket arrives there...and that way leads to madness, IMHO.
I've gotten to a toss where my toss arm is directly in line with where my serve wants to go, palm up, about chest level, and my hand doesn't even move (and definitely doesn't go down) until I've got the racket pointing to the sky. Then I just lift the ball a short, accurate distance, and presto...a consistent toss, what a miracle. So this is another form of "abbreviation"...try it, your mileage may vary, but it's worth a spin...