Saving leaves on FIM?

I have experience pruning lots of fruit, vegetables, vines, and trees so learning to prune my baby has required some restraint (I want to prune it to death I am afraid.) I have a good understanding of the nodes/growth tip the difference between topping and fimming- My question is when I FIM why do I need to cut the fan leaves at all -can't I carefully only pinch out the growing tip by folding the fan leaves back?

I've seen some growers point out the grown out pinched leaves so I guess I just don't understand why they need to be damaged in the fimming process (besides that it may be easier). I figure there must be something I am missing so I'll check in before doing something dumb!

OK so this has me thinking- Fimming is essentially topping the plant at an earlier stage of the bud, when the nodes are closer. It isn't making 4 nodes due to some hormonal process of the fim, those nodes are there and would just be stretched out with growth when you top. I get that it breaks the dominance but it isnt hormonaly throwing out more nodes. Am I understanding this right?

I'm like the worst kind of noob a veggie farmer noob. I think I know what I don't and I don't know what I do UGH!

short answer, yes you can leave the fan leaves on.

Thanks that is the picture that made me wonder..

Done. We'll see how it goes. It would be easy to damage the new buds but I think I did ok.

Any pro/cons in your opinion?

Obviously if I had a ton of plants I wouldn't be doing this. I've topped 3 acres of brussel sprouts in a morning- pinch, pinch step, pinch, pinch, step

i leave the fan leaf on. no need to cut them unless you are doing a specific training technique like manifold