So I have been following along on this thread and its got some really interesting topics and arguments; for both not pruning and pruning. I am an outdoor grower myself and love to fuck with my plants as its almost therapeutic in a sense. Spending hours with a doobie in the mouth fucking around with pruning this and tying down that.
One thing I have noticed in my times growing is that pruning is good to an extent. As was mentioned, there are pros to pruning outdoors. This could be to split the apical dominance and end up with a plant with more colas. For me, this does not explicitly mean a higher yield in itself. I top because of (as mentioned) issues with bud rot, WPM, etc. In October, its better for me to have more colas rather than one giant donkey dick on top of the plant. A king bud is SO pretty to look at, but where I live I usually have to either cut the king bud early or not even get to keep it due to mold issues. So to that regard, I top to prevent issues.
Another factor is light. When I top many times, I am able to start tying down branches and opening the plant up much much more so than is able to be done with an untopped plant. This creates the bush shape, and I am able to keep a wide flat canopy and give even more light to lower branches and bud sites. Sure you can get light from the sun in all directions so you dont NEED to open up an outdoor plant as much, but try convincing me that more light on the inner branches isn't needed or that it doesn't help in any way and I will probably tell you you're stupid.
I guess I can't go on about whats so good about pruning because there are cons. And as was mentioned, the main one for me is time. I start my plants indoors and then move them outdoors. Because of this I actually try and get most of my topping done indoors and once my plants are moved outdoors I tend to only use LST (typing down), super cropping, or even some pinching of the growth tips (topping but at the very very tip of the branch). I have found that a really deep top (cutting off the top few nodes or more) really affects the plant when its baking in the sun and really takes a week or so to notice some vigorous growth, where as just pinching the tip off barely affects a plant at all.
Also, another thing to mention is during the first weeks of growth when I am topping the plant I also strip off any growth tips I do not want to control the overall shape of the base of the plant. However even when I remove growth tips/branches, I leave their fan leaf. That leaf still has stored nutrients in it and the plant will utilize them once it needs them. It will eventually get blocked out by upper growth, yellow and die off. That is mainly the only time I will start pulling leaves off, when the nutrients in it are depleted and the plant tells you its ready to go.
BUT to each their own, whatever you comfort level is. Thats just my two cents/ what I do to my plants. I think its doing me well since I can grow nice plants which yield a few pounds +/- a bit.