When you take leaves off you decrease photosynthesis. When you decrease photosynthesis, you decrease carbohydrate production. When you decrease carbohydrate production, you decrease yield. You can't take energy from the plant and increase growth. Energy and growth are not mutually exclusive. Your whole premise is based on Beavis and Butthead ignorance. There are many, many scientific studies that document the relationship between defoliation and the accompanying decreases in yield.
"A study on sunflower (Helianthus annus) demons-trated that defoliation could not affect stem diameter and
plant height, but disk flower diameter, filled grains
percentage, one thousand seed weight, harvesting index
and grain yield affected by the every defoliation treat-
ments. Middle leaves of the stem have most important
role than the other leaves because of greater surface and
active participation in the photosynthesis. 100 percent
defoliation was lead to minimum yield of seeds comp-
ared to control because of decrease in grain weight and
filled grain percent (Abbaspour et al., 2001).
Results of
many studies about effects of defoliation on seed yield of
sunflower showed that increase of defoliation intensity
and defoliation near flowering stage was lead to decrease
in seed yield because of decreasing in the photosynthetic
surface"
"
Defoliation decreases yield by reduction of plantphotosynthesis, reduced light interception, reduction of stored dry matter caused by leaf area loss and
reduction of the filling period (Hinson et al., 1978; Ingram et al., 1981)."
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...tPu5Y7&sig=AHIEtbTNXfsjKc8RSKyUESuwYVwf8HJwsw
There are endless scientific studies on this subject going back decades. Every scientific study comes to the same conclusion. Decreasing foliage decreases yield.
Decrease the energy going into the plant and you decrease the growth of the plant. It's simple math. 5 - 2 does not equal 6. It equals 4.
thanks for proving my point... 
point proven.. 
