Ok, I get what you're saying about the value of actually seeing and being able to say "Yes, the ammonia spike happened last week" that makes sense to me.
I will disagree however with water changes being detrimental to the cycle. My understanding and belief is that as long as there is detectable ammonia the cycle is proceeding. Allowing it to reach toxic levels doesn't speed things up and doesn't help anything. Detectable ammonia to me means that there is more than the current level of bacteria can handle and the cycle is proceeding normally. I've always been told that a tank will cycle just as fast if you maintain 0.25 ppm as it will if you maintain 1 ppm and keeping the levels lower will make life easier on all the other desirable inhabitants of the tank (beneficial bacteria, in this case hitchhikers and other organisms) that have to live in there as you go through the cycle.
As far as die off from the rock, I should qualify that there was some just not as much as I was expecting. Everything I've read led me to believe that this is because the rock was mostly cured. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if a tank is keeping up with ammonia and nitrate production (from some LR die off, waste from inverts, etc) is that not how you would define a cycled tank?
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