Sweet Jesus...the only good thing about trimming off the really large, and only the largest fan leaves, is that it does decrease the stretch period during flowering. But only because the plant is focusing on trying to grow more leaves...I can see that removing larger leaves one time 2 or 3 weeks before the start of flowering can be advantageous in this way to him...but he is outdoors and I am in...so there is no reason for me to remove anything at anytime...because I know how high they are going to get because I keep bending, cutting, twisting and staking all the branches to be exactly how I want them before I start flowering...I have no reason to take anything off or worry about stretching...I can account for it with pretty good accuracy...I have a max of 3.5 feet--max...so I never flower anything over 18 in high...I might veg a plant for 6 weeks and it would have been 4 ft tall except I kept bending everything down and down and down...so stretch is very controlled...he lets his just go...so I can imagine that a large stretch could be a not so good thing...but other than that all this is just ludicrous! Just insanity...Leaves don't shade anything..they are like bulk heads...this one takes the light and makes food and what not and sends it back into the plant at the node it is attached to...that node takes what it needs to do what it is doing there, and then sends the rest back on the out shoot, where each node thereafter gets some energy from the nodes above, and also from whatever leaves are still lower down the plant getting light...So those large fan leaves are just grabbing more light and then redistributing it's energy throughout the plant...They can't block the sun..they absorb it's energy and then send on what they don't need..to the next one and the next one and the next one...which is why all your little growth is well little...it doesn't get it's own light and is dependent on the larger fan leaves up top...so by removing the little under branches you help the plant...but removing the leaves doesn't help develop the buds...I mean some people say it does...but a lot of people do pee on their plants and think that is right... Or give them huge amounts of food and think that is right..or overwater and think they are doing right, til they learn different...different strokes for different folks.