1 - I crimp all my barbs mostly because they rip up the fish pretty good. Not having to go to the clinic or performing self-surgery is a very helpful side benifit. (1 occurence for me so far this year)
2- I like swaps. I'm not really understanding how they could hurt the forum but I'm open to hearing other opinions.
Maybe it would be good to have an ongoing trade thread were someone could post pics of some plugs that they made to trade with other builders. (Maybe that would just open another can of worms however
)