I'm just saying that if it takes, say 6 or 7 days to drink all the water, maybe it would be better to cut the watering in half for a few cycles. That way you give nutes more frequently since there are more cycles and the roots dry out quicker than they would if it took 7-10 or more days to drain the plant. You've said yourself you water lightly around the edges if the plant goes more than three days and still hasn't drained all the water.
Once the roots get large enough to drain the water in 2-4 days I totally get soaking the root ball and letting the plant tell you when it needs more, but I have plants with such poorly developed root systems due to overwatering that it takes way longer to drain the water than 10 days and it feels like I'm just extending the problem by soaking the rootball when they finally do.
I consider 3 days to be a magic number in the closed container growing business. Three days is how long of a buffer your soil should provide for you, no matter the size of the container. While you are building roots, (veg) if it is taking longer than that to drain the container, your roots are not yet developed enough to handle that much soil, and extra measures must be taken to get your plant there. If it is taking less than 3 days, you are filling that space with roots and you are well on your way to the next uppotting.
Please take a careful look at how I am doing things here, and how fast my plants are growing. My wet/dry cycle method is not just showing me the strength of the roots and the water usage, but it is also regularly forcing oxygen down deep into the soil, keeping the lower roots very energized. Roots absolutely must get regular hits of oxygen in order to thrive.
Also please note that after the plants came to the surface and it was clear that I had saturated the soil to the point of runoff by giving the seeds small amounts of water twice each day, that I stopped watering, but only until the 3 day point. This first cycle, so far has been the ONLY time that my plants took over 3 days to drain the water, and when they clearly didn't need watering again after 3 days that first time, I lightly watered only around the edges. Also note that after that around the edges watering, the roots expanded laterally so rapidly that the plants
all drained the containers on that 4th day and needed a full watering. Then, by forcing the plants to try to get to the 3 day mark again the next time, the roots were so strong that they have been able to clear all of the water 2 times now, and I expect that this time, the wet/dry cycle will even be faster. Each wet/dry cycle shows us by its ever shortening duration that we have stronger roots, as the plant can drain the cup faster and faster each time and soon the plant is going to tell me when it needs to be uppotted. If I was instead, choosing for the plant how much water I think it needed and how often to cycle that water, I would have no idea where my roots were at any given point and I would be flying blind. My lower roots would likely not be seeing regular hits of oxygen, and my plants would not be growing as fast as they are capable. You should expect extremely fast growth from this weed if all the conditions are right, and these are the reasons that I regularly achieve hydro growth speeds in soil.