There may well be easier ways than IF-ELSE but you don't say which PICAXE you are using. On the 28X2 it's as simple as -
let pinC.0 = bit7
let pinC.1 = bit9
let pinC.6 = bit10
let pinC.7 = bit11
Any project or product requires design to balance the hardware against the PICAXE chosen and the commands it supports to match the specification. Each will influence the other; hardware may dictate what PICAXE is chosen, PICAXE chosen will define what hardware options there are, hardware will dictate what software is required, software commands may dictate particular hardware. On top of that you will have cost and possible skill constraints.
Amongst all those possibilities will be options which are ideally or better suited and others which are less so. If you end up with a less than ideal design you have to jump through hoops to make things work when they would be easier otherwise.
It's easy to go from idea to implementation but then run into problems and difficulties; lack of program memory or variables, I/O mapping far from being ideal, difficulty in controlling I/O. Ideally development should be along the lines of product specification, functional specification, architectural design, prototyping, implementation and testing, with each stage weighing up the pro's and con's of possibilities and comparing and contrasting options at each stage, and it's a looping and iterative process as well as; discoveries ( of problems or things which may be beneficial ) feeding-back into a re-design which is better. For experienced developers the process is largely second nature rather than a set of formal rules.
Being unimpressed by a particular PICAXE or its capabilities is a bit like being unimpressed that a family saloon doesn't perform as well as an F1 racer on the track. Some PICAXE's, just like cars, don't support some things which are desirable because of limitations, there's just no way to support all that may be desirable with what's available at the price people will pay so compromise has be had.
All of us have gone down the path ( or will ) with a project which hits a dead-end or winds up with difficulties and it's realised that there could have been a better design, and that complexity and difficulty comes as a consequence of the path we followed. It's all part of the learning experience.