J/K- As I submitted to Fatman, then if this were true, then a UC system would grow as good if not better without the airstones in each res? I highly doubt that. Im always looking for ways to improve systems j/k, that much should be obvious to you :)
There is more to the bubbles that maintaining the waters DO. Fatman did not seem to understand that when the bubbles actually come into contact with the roots, the DO reading goes from roughly 12, to whatever the PPM of oxygen is in the air, (like 20,000 or something). Not to mention the continous turbulance created by the bubbles.
If you really believe that the bubbles are useless, I would love to see a test setup. A res without airstones and a res with. :)