Yes those RC threads can take on life's of their own. Unfortunately lots of good info gets lost in the works.
IMO the main point to take home from them is that total bio load is important whether you have a fish only setup or a 'balanced' reef system, bare bottom (not the kind that you sit on
) or a DSB. The odds are that without some form of intervention beyond adding food, Ca, Alk, and top off water, the system will eventually crash. For an aquarium to be a self balancing ecosystem like a real reef then they would have to be a, well, real reef.
I think that I will be replacing my sand with a shallower bed of coarser grains and place less emphasis on critters and more on manual labour. May as well give a different method a go for 3 years and compare.