[rayjay]

You need to read the article fully so you understand each segment and don't let your opinions reflect in what you are seeing.
First of all, the article isn't mine, it is by a respected chemist in the medical field who just happens to spend a lot of time researching the hobby and helping hobbyists on RC.
Quote:
First calibrate the refractometer in pure freshwater. This can be distilled water, RO (reverse osmosis) water, RO/DI water, bottled water and even tap water with reasonably low TDS (total dissolved solids). Calibrating with tap water that has a TDS value of 350 ppm introduces only about a 1% error in salinity, causing readings in seawater to read a bit low. So 35 ppt seawater (specific gravity = 1.0264) will read to be about 34.7 ppt, and will show a specific gravity of about 1.0261
You are taking this out of context. This error is specifically the error between calibration with freshwater and calibration with TDS of 350 ppm.
The section you didn't see states:

Refractometers can lead to incorrect readings in additional ways and, again, these issues abound for reef aquarists. One is that many refractometers are intended to measure sodium chloride solutions, not seawater. These are often called salt or brine refractometers. Despite the scale reading in ppt (‰) or specific gravity, they are not intended to be used for seawater. Unfortunately, many refractometers used by aquarists fall into this category. In fact, very few refractometers used by hobbyists are true seawater refractometers.

Fortunately for aquarists, the differences between a salt refractometer and a seawater refractometer are not too large. A 35 ppt sodium chloride solution (3.5 weight percent sodium chloride in water) has the same refractive index as a 33.3 ppt seawater solution, so the error in using a perfectly calibrated salt refractometer is about 1.7 ppt, or 5% of the total salinity. This error is significant, in my opinion, but not usually enough to cause a reef aquarium to fail, assuming the aquarist has targeted an appropriate salinity in the first place. Figure 23 shows the relationship between a perfectly calibrated and accurate salt refractometer and a perfectly calibrated and accurate seawater refractometer when the units are reported in salinity.

You appear to be picking sentences out of the article and not using them in the context of the part of the article they are found in.

Another fine example of how people use long boring articles to exaggerate facts into myths, and more annoyingly they never even actually read the article or this case even use the equipment in discussion.

IMO, it's only boring to those that aren't really interested in the whole facts and while I agree that in the great scheme of things, the .0017 error isn't going to cause your tank to fail, it is there, and it's hypocritical IMO to crucify use of swing arms by someone who ignores the limitations of many refractometers.
From the quote I pasted from Randy's article, it appears you haven't adhered to your own policy of "they never even actually read the article", (at least in it's entirety).
As for me not using a refractometer, it is because I know their limitations and I know that a certified calibrated hydrometer is more dependably accurate than a refractometer, and that I have no need to use a refractometer because it isn't going to make my tanks run any better.