Im beginning to understand why some people have success using certain techniques and others fail.
Between mis-imformation, poor habits, bad timming, these poor practices are implimented and the outcomes vary drastically.
The simple word "de-foilate" seem to get lost in transmission and while some strip everything, at the others end they refuse to touch anything.
Most of these techniques work and really well if implimented properly, Topping for example has nothing to do with nodes...especially on clones. This is one of the biggest things that leads to failure with topping. Topping the plant is for only one purpose, to allow side branching to catch up to the mains creating an even canopy, thus increasing bud size and sometimes quantity. If your using clones then time is more important than nodes.
The key to topping is to top your strain at the right time so that all branches reach the canopy just as they go into flower. This varies greatly from strain to strain.
Don't be so quick to blame the technique, from what I have seen any of these techniques its usually the grower and not the technique.