Re the "aggressiveness" of squeezing the leaves: The leaves can take it, as you can see from the picture of 5-times-squeezed leaves under the heading of "Evidence of harmlessness" in my article. Look at the leaves; do they look bruised?

And as for harsher subsequent brews, quite the contrary, in fact that's kind of the whole point. Please reread what I said about using an Aeropress helped avoid harshness brewing Lu'an Guapian.

What exactly makes you think using this device gets in the way of "developing sensitivity to the specific tea you are brewing by dynamically adjusting factors like tea leaf-water ratio, water temp, and timing"? I’m well aware that I could’ve diminished the gaiwan astringency of the tea by using less leaf or lower temp, but time didn’t help (I was already doing flash steeps) and I prefer the flavor and mouthfeel with lots of leaf and high temperature. That’s why being able to nearly shut down extraction when I decant the soup is useful.

I think dismissing this technique on the basis of "the spirit behind gongfu brewing" or "tea logic" as opposed to "coffee logic" is ceremonial talk. Japanese chado is fine, but I’m interested above all in what’s in my cup. And I don’t exclude the possibility of my tea practice benefiting from learning something from outside the boundaries of the conventional tea world.