Hi Don
I have grown in soil before. Like most growers, that's where I started. I went through a pretty typical progression: bag seed in dirt from the back yard --> bag seed in "real" potting soil under a shop light --> bag seed in soil under HID (MH and HPS) --> bag seed (by this time I had a decent mother) in soiless mix of vermiculite and perlite under HID --> flood & drain in trays under HID --> Ebb & Gro (like I'm using now) under HID. I think a lot of us went through a similar path.
While I'm becoming more and more interested in soil for various reasons, I'm not ready to start any experimenting. It will be another few crops before I start any experimenting. I've barely begun to dial in my grow. The flower environment is good, but that's only the start.
You're very right that plants will show signs of stress quicker in hydro. How is that a bad thing though? First, remember that we are not growing plants, we grow roots. The plant just happens as a result of our roots. OK now that we've settled that... In soil, when you see a problem in the plant, that usually means the problem has been at the roots for much longer. The counterpart to this is recovery. In either medium, when we see a sign of a deficiency or stress, we take action. In hydro, I see the results of my action much quicker. In soil, I'm left hoping I chose the right course of action. I'm sorry, but I do not think this is a benefit soil has over hydro, but again, this is all my opinion.
Some folks believe that bud grown correctly, according to their preferences, in soil, will always taste better than the same bud grown in hydro. I am NOT one who subscribes to this belief. I'm not saying whether it's true or not. I don't know. This is something I will never take someone else's word for since things like taste are such subjective qualities. Once I've gotten to know some of my strains better, I will be conducting an experiment to test exactly this assertion. While it's not happening soon, I'd like to do one in a water only super soil and another with Doc's high Brix kit.
I've always been puzzled when I hear that hydro is harder. My hydro maintenance routines consists of the following. Several times a day I go down there and look at the meter. Some of those times I write down the numbers. Most of the time I don't. If the lights are on, I will say hello to the ladies. I'll peek at the mommies. Smoke a bowl, then head back upstairs. Once a week, I change the reservoir. This involves disconnecting the fill tube from my res and connecting the tube that goes to my drain. Then I just unplug the fill pump from the extension cord that leads to the controller bucket, and plug it in. That drains the res. Then I have another pump in my RO tank, that uses a float valve so it always has water waiting for me, that pumps the new water into the res. It does take some time to pump 35-50g out of the res then back in, but I can do things while the pumps run. I will mix up my nutrients into 5g buckets while the res drains. I usually fill 3 or 4, so I can dilute my nutes separately. After I have my buckets of nutes finished, I'll smoke a bowl and wait for the water to pump. It takes about an hour to change the res, and most of that time is spent waiting for the pumps to move all that water.
A fresh res is stable for at least 4-5 days. I rarely have to add back much water because my dehumidifier drains right into the control bucket. Since the water came from my res to begin with, with this setup I'm just pulling it out of the air and putting it back.
After 4-5 days, the ph can drift. In my case, recently, it's been going down. I just add back some tap or RO, depending on how much ph I want to raise. I do have to use ph up sometimes, but rarely more than twice per res. Managing ph isn't really a lot of work. It's also not something you have to fuss over. Most nutes are made with buffers to help keep the res ph where it should be. If you use RO, your nute soup will usually mix up at a perfect ph. At least that's been my experience.
Here is where I think the myth that hydro is hard came from...
Let's look at Joe Grower. He's been growing for a couple years now. He's got a couple strains he knows real well. He's got his flowering room all dialed in just the way he likes. He's growing fantastic cannabis. Since he knows how to grow, he decides it's time to try out hydro, but he's nervous. He decides to continue with the perpetual soil system he's spent the last 2 years dialing in. He get a couple DWC buckets as an experiment and sticks them in the corner of the room.
I've never grown using DWC, mostly because it seems far less forgiving to me, but it seems to be where most folks start for some reason. That's Joe's first mistake IMHO. He is trying to do two plants in addition to the same amount of work to support his soil grow. Nothing was done to free up any of his growing time for these 2 new DWC buckets. This is in addition to his normal load. If Joe is like the rest of us, his garden is probably already keeping him pretty busy. This is a recipe for disaster. The DWC gets a little neglected. The next thing you know he has pyth. Maybe Joe tries again. This time I changes the res's more often and perhaps tries to keep them cooler with ice or something. Maybe this time he harvests some buds, but they suck compared to the soil plants he has so much practice with.
At this point, Joe is wondering what the advantages of DWC are. All he see is the extra work. I don't blame him. Doing hydro like that sucks. I'm not saying it can't have excellent results or that it's an inferior way to grow pot. I'm saying that method sucks for the grower. It IS a lot of work, and it's hard. Don't write off hydro though because of one implementation! If you're growing 2 buckets, it might be fine, but as soon as you start getting to 4-6 plants, you really need a central res that serves multiple plants. When your plant count goes up, hydro becomes more efficient.
In soil, I have to tend to 35 individual plants. With my system, I change one res and I've just serviced all 35 plants for the next week. How is that harder than soil?
Well take a seat, cause I have a little story...
I just left my garden over the holiday last weekend. I left Thursday, and returned Sunday night ~9PM. Before I left, I had done a res change. In my haste to leave, or perhaps due to some hash laden bong hits, I forgot to plug the fill pump back into the controller bucket! So basically, they didn't get ANY floods for more than 3 days (~73 hours). It only seemed to have had any affect on 2-3 plants. One was already looking a little off when I left, slight yellowing of some leaves. It looked a little worse when I got home, and 2 of the plants were a little droopy. All of these plants are in the area that probably gets the worst air movement too, so that's why they were affected more than the others.
Anyway, the point is, I was gone for 3 days with the system basically off the entire time, and my plants are fine. I'm not sure how they would have faired in other types of hydro. I'm a big fan flood and drain systems that use grow rock.
I openly acknowledge my bias in favor of hydro. I'm aware of some of the benefits a soil grow offers, hence why I'm planning to run some tests. I haven't ruled out soil, but I also realize that, if I do make the switch, I'm going to have to work through a learning period again. That's actually my biggest concern for Jon, but I'm encouraged that his plan is to phase in the switch. He's so smart.
This is why I'm watching Jon's grow so closely. That and he and I seem to think a lot alike on things.
Holy cow! I just did a preview to look for typos. Sorry Jon, I didn't mean to write a book all over your thread. I leave this window open and work on these while I wait for queries to run, so this has been sitting here for awhile now.
Plus I am feeble and would think I did this or that only to find I just thought I did it... 
