I'm sorry (not really), what you wrote is laughable to me. The relentless attack on 'penal substitionary atonement' (is that the simplest all-encompassing term?) is the single greatest obstacle I face in any serious (sustainable) inquiry into Orthodox theology. Simple reason that, it is so much in at least the Epistles of St. Paul (Romans, I believe chiefly) and a good example is that reference you gave to Romans 5:9. The Orthodox, I would think, welcome in their characterization what St. Paul wrote last in 5:10, "...we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" - that part "we shall be saved by His life" - but they seem (or so the young, ex-Protestant and Protestant-adverse converts primarily) to deny that His death meant any kind of satisfaction to or allaying of the Father's wrath. But when that is exactly what is stated (Protestants will insistently believe; for my part, a simple mind who can't bear the tortured nuanced and minimalizing interpretations that sideline what sound like very defenitive words and expressions) ... well, I must throw away/discard the whole Bible, chief among them the Epistles of St. Paul, if it cannot be believed that a true 'penal substitutionary atonement' was endured/suffered by the Savior Christ on the Cross.
It can readily be agreed that the substitution (and its "penal" aspect) was not the only - or even, I suppose, the necessarily primary - theme of the atonement. And, whatever the case, the historical Resurrection is the more prominent, culminating result of all that occurred, and the happiest circumstance for Christians to recall in every time and place, and anticipate for the future. But it is so jarring to hear the hyper-sounding denials of any substitution/punishment/wrath/atonement at all (pick out of the words, all of them, or a different word.) If Christ took upon Himself our sins to the Cross, then isn't it enough to say that there was a substitution? Was it just a poetic expression where Christ said that He "would give [His] life a ransom for many"? At the very least, one has to be highly intelligent and capable of parsing out the Scriptures to ignore those that speak of darker aspects of the Crucifixion (those darker aspects including uncomfortable words like "ransom", "wrath", or satisfaction), to be or become a good Orthodox it seems.
(I'm sorry for the rant... not just to you Walter, but collectively to the anti-substitutioners, because I don't post often.)