IMO sand is just a toilet you can't flush. Eventually (even years) that toilet is gonna fill up to the brim. Want the aesthetics of a sand bed, then start bucketing all that s*** out on a regular basis. Sand beds should be maintained and cleaned religiously IMO which is hard to do a good job of with live rock, coral,etc in the way. Never mind when that toilet bowl starts to fill up the the brim it will eventually start to wick all it's yummies into all that pretty live rock you got sitting on top of it. Sand has one purpose and one purpose only in a tank, aesthetics. It offers nothing more to the health of the system. And gives the user a false sense of security that they don't need to be removing the debris that builds up and that somehow that sand bed indefinitely process all that s*** for them. So IMO if you want to look at a pretty sand bed and not a pane of glass then it needs to be maintained.
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