Sure, dont prune!
1 week before flower, I trim lower branches and use the material as clones. I only trim higher branches when they are damaged.
When you trim a branch/leaf, this stresses the plant and can cause it to stop growing for up to a week so I would NEVER trim in flower. Any potential for stopping growth in flower is just silly in my opinion.
Plants grow through photosynthesis and this occurs in leaves. Photosynthesis needs 3 elements, water, CO2 and light. Without any of these elements, a plant cannot photosynthesise and therefore grow. By removing leaf material that is undamaged, you are removing the plants solar panels.
Many growers thing bud sites need light, this is not true, the leaves need light. I have even experimented by covering bud sites deliberately to see if this is true. Try it for yourself and I guarantee you will never unnecasarily trim another leaf! Cover a bud site with its associated leaves and watch that bud grow. On the same plant, trim some leaves from a particular bud site and watch how the bud fails to develop the same.
In short, only trim what you have to, not to "let light in", this is a common mistake made by people who do not understand what happens in plant physiology.
W
