The only part of your statement that is correct is the part about increased water flow. But high turnover at the surface is more effective than aeration with bubbles anyway, so i use that method regardless. I do notice that without a skimmer I harvest a lot more chaeto, but that takes like 2 seconds once a week or so. No activated carbon, no HLLE for me thank you. I don't use filter pads, just simple sponge filters at the intake of my HOB, which takes care of all the problems you speak of with nothing but Chaeto in it and a blurple grow light. Rinsing out the sponge filters takes a few minutes once or twice per month. No big deal. I did have some ups and downs with nitrate problems when I had a skimmer though, because it was so temperamental and inconsistent. I now have a much more stable system without it. If I had a large tank that was over stocked with an unusually high bio load, I would feel that a skimmer is necessary. Most of the irrational arguments on this forum stem from people making erroneous blanket presumptions about other peoples systems. Sure, if my system was exactly like yours in every way but did not have a skimmer, I might run into problems, but that's not the case.
