Skimmerless for the last 9 years. There are more negatives than positives to having a skimmer.
Negatives: usually cost money to purchase, maintenance time to clean, potential for malfunction / flood.
There are only two positives of having a skimmer which can be accomplished in many other ways: oxygenation (insignificant effect in most tanks), and nutrient export (never been an issue for me).
Skimmer was the biggest waste of money for me to date besides the AI line of products.
All that being said...the pictures of tanks with skimmers do seem nicer Not sure I would consider that a strong cause and effect argument though. People like myself who run without may just be lazier in general and would never put in the effort it takes to run a reef of the month quality tank regardless of what equipment we had. I know my tank looks better today than it did with a skimmer at least.
FWIW, I'm thinking of ditching my HOB skimmer on my 90 gallon . I turn it on for about 6 hours a day and it either acts up or pulls little to nothing. I've actually dumped a lot of stuff I used to do. And added a few small things, I find the simplicity of using less to be beneficial in the long run.So much this!! Same here and my exact thought process. I’ve only had headaches with skimmers, either overflowing or working great and then do a water change and it take a while to break back in..I even know a guy where it caused his tank to have a mini crash due to overflow from the skimmer malfunction randomly and it changed the whole biology of the tank with increased nutrients all of a sudden and caused his SPS to RTN.. I stopped running them and the tank and SPS seem happier
No more canister as of about 15 years ago, I no longer dose anything, never had a sump.
I did add a UV about 12 years back which I find helpful...actually picking up another one tomorrow as mine bit the dust. I've always had a polishing powerhead. Added more flow through hydors, and small Jebao wavemakers. Small 2-3% water changes every 4 days. Plenty of LR in my system and about an 1 1/2" sandbed. As mentioned above, I'm not winning reef of the month anytime soon lol, but the system is rock steady over the years, and I enjoy it ...knock on wood...