I think exposure to Loebs is a good idea. It would allow students to meet with 'real' latin without a massive amount of notes, but while still making it relatively understandable. It allows students to read texts 'above their level' while still being comprehensible.

I had a university prof. set a Loeb text as our main text once; he mentioned that others might criticise him for it, but it was the best text available and he didn't care if the English was facing - it was up to us to get the most out of studying the Latin text.