nah...its not bad at all...but i am sure somewhere along the lines someone did something stupid with them that spread a rumor.

you should lift them off the fork lowers every once in awhile and gently run hose water up into them to clean them out. then i would compress air dry the inside and then "snap" them back in place on the lowers. the amount of crud that gets by an intact fork boot is minimal, more of a residual fine dust that is then easily wiped by the actual fork dust seal. rather than getting a clump of mud flung up on your stanchion and then the dust seal having to deal with that.

basically, if my forks came with them, i would certainly leave them there. however, i would not go through the trouble of putting any on my fork if they didn't come with them. i also wouldn't use the Lizard skin type either. the accordion style ones that often come on forks are very functional

don't cut them off