1- how many people are actually willing to contribute 6+ inches of depth to a sand bed?
2 - Proper sediment size is tricky, again, a direct result of availability of real live sand in Canada.
3 - As Albert stated, what happens when you move rocks around? What about rocks that you have to root deeper within the sandbed for stability?
4 - Ron's article puts a huge amount of emphasis on the non-bacterial organisms in the sand. Organisms that, guess what,
I've never seen anywhere in Canada. In fact, the entire second half of the article is devoted to the larger organisms within the sand.
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The key to the success of such a sand bed community is water movement between the sediment grains. I mentioned above that it is essentially impossible for waves or water currents to move water in sediments. However, there is an exceptionally useful method of generating slow and even water movement through sediments. This water movement is caused by the motion of the animals in the upper inch or so of sand, particularly in those vertically-oriented tube worms such as Phyllochaetopterus, but also by all other animals moving in the upper sediment layers. The amount of water moved by one worm is quite small, on the order of a few fractions of a milliliter per day to a couple of milliliters per hour, but the cumulative total of all the water moved by all the animals in the sand bed is quite considerable. It is enough to push water into and through the sediments.
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As live rock is concerned, there is a enough anaerobic activity within a tank taht has an average ratio of live rock enough to keep the nitrates within my tank at <1ppm (Salifert).
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"By simply setting up a deep sand bed, and then maintaining that bed with the proper diversity and mix of animals, reef aquarists can facilitate the utilization of the necessary excess nutrient resulting from normal feeding."
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You should take things into context before hopping onto an argument where some things don't even apply.