Apparently with you, and I'm fine with that. But it depends on who you ask. I enjoy plenty of respect from many sectors of the bike industry, and in many quarters Mr. Barnett is not as well respected. But we're not in competition, so there's no need to debate the point.

The fact is that Mr. Barnett and I have a different approach to bicycle mechanics, and that's perfectly fine, with neither being right nor wrong in any absolute sense. Like most things that have any degree of subtlety, there's room for disagreement.

Look at chain lubrication. There are many possible approaches, and I chose to take a very different one. It doesn't make me right and the others wrong (or the other way around). But as they say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" and many who've tried mine will confirm that I make a damn good pudding (though, naturally, it isn't to everybody's taste)

To the OP, removing one or two, or even 3 balls from a full complement won't cause any serious problem (though I don't think it does any good either), but there's no disagreement that one too many will, so if in doubt go ahead and remove one more if you prefer.