This is not my thread. I am just ensuring that there is fair and honest debate between the claims that you make regarding EI, and the on-going discussion you have had with it's creator, Tom Barr. That way people can quickly access the information they require to form an accurate opinion on the issue.
I never created EI, at least the method itself, Hoagland's modified hydroponic solution and modified versions with large water changes to maintain good stable ppm's is hardly something I came up, since this was done back in the 1930's.
In fact, 90% or more of EI comes directly from PMDD which is mostly Paul Sears and the APD folks from the 1990's. I've argued for it, but I never created it, I've written about it, coined a term, but that's about all.
I understand that the creating founder was of ADA was the wonderfully gifted Takashi Amano. He really WOWED people and then set up a company that continues to make high-end aquarium products. The stuff they put out is highly sought after and I myself want them A LOT too. He is a highly skilled inventor in the area of planted aquaria and a master aquascaper. I don't think that this is an excuse to state that ADA (or do you mean, Takashi) invented everything from scratch. This is like saying that Albert Einstein didn't just create the theory of relativity, he in fact 'invented' physics. It is fundamentally flawed. Even Einstein had to learn something from an educated senior before progressing to a senior level himself.
ADA is a company, I am not. ADA mostly promoted aquascaping, which is different from horticulture and production of growth.
ADA does not share analysis of their sediments. Nor offers any methods and results for fertilizers etc, they simply try and sell sell sell.
Pretty pictures, very good ones, etc.
But this does NOT lead to some higher understanding about how aquatic plants grow or critical thinking. We gain little knowledge overall unless you pay for a very expensive product and line of aquariums.
Many hobbyists cannot pay that high price. But they can benefit from the methods of scaping from ADA, which is what most of the AJ, along with buy our product line suggest.
ADA fanboys offer little, as to what induces specific algae, or offer logic based on Liebig's law etc, most is parroted from ADA marketing.
I cannot answer this question as I am in fact younger than the first posted operating year of ADA. Before that I am beginning to think that there was just a bleak, horrible and remarkably less zen world without planted tanks. Hurry up Takeshi! Discover!
By El natural, do you mean.. you know what, I can't even bothered answering.
I can, Dutch scapes kicked butt, but they are done by individuals/hobbyists, not a company and a professional photographer. So there is little promotion of those, they are older than Amano is for that matter.
El natural: non CO2/non Excel based panted tanks, prior to the 1970's, it was done, but rarely, I have DIY yeast CO2 suggested from TFH from 1962. Researchers used it going back to the 1930's at least for growth of algae and plants.
You can be an awesome scaper but not know beans about algae, plant physiology, Liebig, etc, likewise, you can know about science, grow plants very well, but be a lousy scaper or photographer. A method does not imply an awesome scape.
Nor does an awesome scape imply a superior method.
You say you want people to come to an objective opinion, but you are not arguing like it. I like ADA and I like Amano personally, but I'm not a fanboy nor place anyone up on a pedestal. Your post?
Be honest.
update the article.. 
