To trim or not to trim? A philosophic enquiry

Yes.. I trim for better air flow, better light penetration for denser secondary buds and for shape and to control the rh and to control how much a plant eats I've got to remind you that taking anymore than 1/3 of the leaves off a plant will put the plant into shock until it heals, same with topping. Here's a philosophic answer for you... Before you take anyone's advice on this matter/topic... please look up their gram's per plant on the growers page. It's on the left... the person with the little hat. Just look up their grams per plant before taking their advice seriously. On this matter/topic.

Depends on the situation, it's not a cut and dried answer, pun intended. 😁

Simple rule of thumb. Do not defoliate unless there is a valid reason to do so. Care to increase airflow? Go ahead, Want to direct growth patterns, Go ahead, Want to maintain canopy until flip , go ahead. Preventing bud rot and pythium is not done through careful defoliation although it helps airflow, its prevented by having a correctly setup airflow and negative pressure. Constant overnight airflow gently beating the leaves. E=Mc2. Rip off 40% of leaves, rip off 40% of mitochondria. I'd rather have you explain to me how this benefits a plant.... especially autoflowers. Autoflowers chronological clock begins the second its germinated. Plant growth is dictated by a vast array of metrics and environmental "optimals" but at the very top of that food chain is ATP. More energy = more mass. Taking off 40% of a plants ability to capture light and respire, is reducing its energetic potential by 40% each and every cycle. Defoliate all you want. Just make sure there is a reason for doing so. Dont just do it because some bell end on a YouTube video did so. Therefore monkey see monkey do.

Less leaves = less energy being made = less potential. More leaves = more energy being made = more potential. Buds do not need direct light to grow, just like how apples do not only grow on the sunny side of trees.

Leave the leaves , the plant will finish to move its own nutrients, and will choose by themselves which leaves to sacrifice

Yes, it's the 3rd week of flowering, a nice shape. This will expose the final buds more to light. Another light pruning at 5 weeks, and 1 or 2 weeks before harvest, I also like to remove some leaves.

It's a hard one to answer really as it's dependent on how the plant is growing, say I have a big fan leaf and the set below has a good amount of leaves not getting the light because the big fan leaf is blocking it then I'll remove the big leaf but only if there are enough leaves to still power it.

I regularly let leaves shield buds... the only correlaton i see is related to apical dominance. Whether a 2nd level bud is covered or not, it develops like all the other 2nd level buds... I've purposely left leaves over buds for several years now, becauase this myth bothers me. No negative effects so far. You'd think if it had a major effect, i would have seen it by now? I definitely shield buds, and like clockwork, they come out looking like buds of similar apical dominance that are less shielded without fail.. without any inconsistency relative to apical dominance. Can some extreme context cause a problem? Sure. Some clustered lower buds pressing on each other and in near darkness is not the same context... also, buds that low and congested are never going to be high quality, anyway, lol. With that, you'll see a lack of color where the buds have been physically touching and deprived of light.. might have some pathogen, too... Don't overcrowd a canopy or lower areas of canopy and you'll never have to worry about such things. There are 2 things you almost certainly never want to fuck with... potential to absorb light (99% is occuring in top layers of leaves) and ability to effectively transpire. It would take a miracle for anything that negatively impacts these things and still result in a net-positve. Technically anything green on the plant likely is capable of 'some' photosynthesis, but nothing reasonably compares to the top layers of a leaf. Obviously, the plant transpires through the stomata. Only remove leaves for very specific and limited reasons. Proper canopy management will minimize any need to prune branches or leaves. Pruning shit off equates to wasted resources and effort. Some waste is inevitable, but it should be minimized as best possible.

Well it's sort of a fine line like you said for those reasons. Finding a balance between exposing the bud sites while keeping as many leaves to gather that solar energy as possible is pretty tricky. My personal trick is to get under the plants canopy with the lights on and look up through the plant. If she has a lot of overlap you will be able to see this pretty clearly this way. Don't go too crazy removing thing as you seem to know, maybe start light and see how you feel looking at it the next day.