BRS has put out some interesting content across the past year or two.
They had a pretty lengthy discussion around Bare Bottom vs Sand.
The benefits of bare bottom are really obvious -- all the fish poop either directly floats into a skimmer/mechanical filtration, or it clumps up in a certain spot and makes clean up a breeze w/ water changes.
The down side, that doesn't really get mentioned, is that cycling your tank is long and painful unless you start with a bunch of live rock.
I know that was my personal experience. My tank got overrun with red turf algae, I pulled all the rock and threw it in an acid bath, effectively killing it.
Took out all my sand, and then the next year was a complete mess. Pretty much echoes what they discuss in that video. Tanks are easier to get started with sand. You can have successful tanks with or without sand. If your goal is low maintenance SPS dominant long term - then yea absolutely bare bottom is the easiest.
I personally went back to sand, and don't regret it. The tank felt like it lacked life -- I enjoy having the tiger conches, pistol + goby, sand dwelling wrasses.
Heck BRS just did
another video on the topic:
Its pretty interesting -- they straight out say they would
never do barebottom + dry rock for a new tank ever again.