Some gentle LST will be fine, however removing any healthy green leaves will just reduce your plants ability to produce energy and will slow growth. Defoliation, in my opinion, is just so wrong on so many levels, that any wise grower would not contemplate removing healthy green leaves. I agree with some well considered "lollipopping", but try and leaves as many green leaves behind, just removing small inner, weak and spindly branches. Leaves are like solar panels. The less solar panels, the less energy and the less growing. Bushy plants are good, they are producing bulk energy to grow flowers. Try and only remove yellow leaves, just like in nature, and I think you will find your plants will grow their biggest and best flowers that way. After all, they have been doing so for 100s of thousands of years by themselves, with no defoliation going on. Plants can not channel energy, they have no decision making skills at all. All energy is used through out the entire plant. Removing leaves to "channel" energy into "bud sites" is pointless, for if you remove the leaves, their is less energy available, resulting in stunted and slower growth, meanwhile, those "bud sites" are wondering what happened to their energy producing solar panels! On top of this, defoliation if done, can also cause a metabolic "shock" to your plant, resulting in your plant almost "closing down" for up to 2-3 weeks, while it tries to recover from the reduction of energy production.
All in all, de-leafing = bad karma for your plant..
Hope this helps,... Organoman.