>regret not doing an electrical engineering elective at uni when I had the chance.
This notation would not liklely be in the curriculum.
Mainly an artifact of the pen-plotters that were used to print the early digital schematic drawings. Greek letters were not in the character set and at the same time they didn't always print a decimal point very legibly, so the R (multiplier=1, or other multiplier like K for kilohm) was used in lieu of an ohm symbol and it was inserted in the specified component label in place of the decimal point.
