Exactly. Stay far away from the Material editor and use a UVW Map (different than a UVW Unwrap). One you add the modifier, you just select the gizmo and you can rotate the gizmo which rotates the texture. Rotation there is just like when you are modeling so its actually better than what the Material Editor has. Then you modify the UV coordinates again in the rollout for the Modifier, not the Material Editor. That takes care of the tiling stretch after you have adjusted the rotation.
Really its the same thing but its cleaner using the Modifier and more importantly it actually works. Finally, you need to collapse the stack before moving on to the next polygon face that needs adjustment or the modifier will unwind itself. I found that annoying but its not a big deal. Collapsing the stack is not a true commitment like when you are modeling because you can always go back and add a new UVW Map modifier again. I did that to correct one path segment that was slightly off.
Hope that is clear. Try it on a test like I did - its painless.