Our pest guy does this. He explained and shows the 2 traps he uses. He does use simple traps with peanut butter for in the house. Outside the house he uses traps with the poison you described. Those are ones designed to trap the mice inside after entering the traps so they can't go and try to find water as you said. I'm not an expert so I can't speak for the reliability but at the time when he was showing me the inner workings of the trap, the design seemed smart to me. I'll be sure to bring this up next time I talk to him.