My opinion is that Mr. Pall's hedge method is very good for trees in development. Others may disagree. I read about Mr. Valavanis' method which involves pinching and first bud removal for refined bonsai.

Lots of ways, depends upon level of refinement of your tree and your objectives.

Best,

Augustine
central MD 7a

Augustine
I looked  for information about Mr. Valavanis's method and could not find anything but a few youtubes of his beautiful trees. Could you point me in the right direction.  I would love to read about how he develops his Maples. 

First, thank you Owen for your info.

Correction to Mr. Valavanis' technique. His technique (deciduous trees only) is to remove the first set of leaves (not buds) on the terminal buds as they are beginning to open. I would search this on the IBC or this forum on the word "Valvanis" and it should come up.

Secondly Harry Harrington's website, bonsai4me.com, also has a similar method. Look at the species guide for Acer Palmatum. He presents the info a bit differently but I think it is the same concept. Again these methods are for refined trees.

Bill V. states that this method takes a long time to perform and that he only does it on the trees he plans to show during a particular season (because it is so time consuming).

There seems to be some controversy with Walter's trimming method (as always in the bonsai world). However, I always take Walter's, Bill's, Owen's, Kirby's, Brent's and some other's advice as gospel. These guys "got the goods." One must distinguish between good and not so good advice in the forums.

Editorial (again) - I recently attended a meeting of the Baltimore Bonsai Club in which we were deciding which trees were good enough for the Potomac Bonsai Assoc. show at the Nat'l Arboretum. It said alot about many people's ideas of good trees. A number of folks brought little sticks to be considered for the show. We have a long way to go in the USA and we have to learn to be honest with ourselves.

Best to all,

Augustine
central MD 7a

Mr. Valavanis
First I want to tell you how much I loved seeing your trees on the Internet. You are truly a master and that's not kissing %$&#, it's just the truth. When I see two people with such different methods and both have such amazing trees it makes me think a lot about which to method to try. Your method, even though I have not yet read your book seems to be close to what most others are doing.
 Please excuse me, you are correct Walter Pall did not say that the Japanese use that method.
 He said
"How do you suppose the bonsai nurseries with tens of thousands of maples get the dense growth? By pinching every new shoot? With thousands of Chinese?. Or by cutting with a hedge pruner?"
I guess I just put that statement together with other things he was saying and over stated what he said. I sure do not mean to miss quote any one. 
You said, PS: We have been busy bud pinching maple and other deciduous bonsai on a daily basis here for a few weeks.
Do you mean on fully developed trees?
I am pretty new and I am trying to  soak up every thing I can and sometimes doing so gets things a little confused for me..
Thank you for the great advice and I will check into your book.
 

I've never used the "hedge trimming method" nor have I seen it used on trees in Japan.  Perhaps it's used in production fields outside of where I lived.  Walter's method is documented an the results shown.  I cannot weigh in on how good the method works without "seeing inside" the trees in 3D.  

When I created a semi-cascade Acer palmatum over the last two years, I defoliated it with the exception of the weakest buds 3 times in a row and wired all the shoots into position and then removed the wire after two weeks.  So, there are multiple ways to make maple bonsai.  I'm not knocking Walter's way, but need to try it before I pass judgement.  There are people in Japan who have crappy trees too  .  Like Bill said, evaluate someone's trees and if you like their results, copy.  Bill and I do very similar things to our trees.  

Thank You Mr. Valavanisules
Because I do not know all the excepted rules/methods, I get confused many times when some one tells how they perform a task. Not knowing that they are talking about a developed tree, I may try it on something I am trying to train. Thank you for clearing that up for me. 

Bill,

Sorry for getting your methods wrong. (I was referring to information you contributed on one of the forums. I would not disseminate info from any of your copyrighted material.)

The method I was thinking of was for developing small leaves for deciduous species in which you explain to remove the center developing new leaves and only allowing two leaves to remain.

Anyway I greatly appreciate your contribution to the community.

Best,

Augustine
central MD 7a