The way Kano does it, the rewards are generated to an address he owns then sent as a regular transaction (with zero fees) in the first block after 100 confirms. So these rewards are fine to send directly to an exchange (and I have done it as well)...
Correct, as long as you're willing to accept that you've given away your bitcoin without ever having owned it (he who controls the keys owns the coin).
I mean, as long as you use a reputable exchange and consolidate every 20-50 blocks or whatever so they amount doesn't grow too large it shouldn't be an issue. Then from there you can send it to an address you control directly.
The "reputation" of an exchange wasn't what I meant. When you send coin to an exchange, if you don't have access to the private keys, then you are giving them the coin. The now own and control it. While a reputable exchange, will give you use of that amount of coin, you're still not actually in control of that coin (just like a traditional bank, they set the terms of when/how much you can transfer, if/when you can even access that amount, etc.). Even "innocent" things can have an impact (i.e., more than 1 exchange has had repeated sign-in issues lately - If you can't sign-in to that exchange and you don't have the private keys, then you still can't control what
used to be your bitcoin).