The pictures of you at work LXT were more than entertaining. You use a bucket lift to trim a juvenile Norway maple???
You claim to be a carrier Arborist and you don't use a saddle, hard hat, safety glasses or any other industry standard gear? I'm not trying to start a safety Nazi thread, but if you don't have and use professional tools, what does that tell us. That's not even getting into what liability and safety risk you open yourself, your wife/groundperson, your co-workers, or any others around you to.
If you don't follow standard industry safety rules, what other industry standards do you ignore?
For you to question Treeseer's knowledge, a Board Certified Master Arborist, the industry's highest certification, while you prattle on about something that you have no research, studies, or anything but some mistaken, cause and effect, anecdotal evidence about, is ludicrous.
Treeseer has more arborcultural knowledge in his little finger, than you have in your whole hand.
And if it weren't bad enough that you insult a man of Guy's stature, you then question Shigo? Let me ask you this, have you ever read one issue of the ISA's Journal Of Arboriculture? Can you site a study, or even have recollection of a study that supports your claims that a small pocket of water, ever so slightly expanding, in a flexible material like wood, which is comprised of about 50% water itself, is the reason all, already weak, co-dominant stems fail?
How do you know that ice forming in tight crotches doesn't statistically reduce failures? It could be that by slightly pushing outward on the two limbs, and it increases the crotch angle, this reduces bark inclusions. The resulting microscopic damage, and consequent cellular repair, could slowly build a stronger union.
We know tree movement strengthen trees, much the same way human muscles are built stronger by damage and repair. It is entirely possible that this microscopic expansions and contractions of freezing water strengthen the tree. Until you have some solid research, you're just pissing in the wind.
To come on a homeowner helper site and give advice that is unsupported by industry standards or studies, then insult folks with it, is rude, and arrogant sounding.
I don't want to discourage you from posting, it's a good way to learn which of your ideas are half baked, like this one.