Rock "Cooking"--a dangerous trend or something worthwhile?

[finneganswake]

I was hoping to get some expert advice on what I see as the newest unfounded fad on RC--"cooking" your live rock. It's all over the general forum; pretty much any algae issue that is presented is answered by a chorus of "Have you cooked your rocks yet?" Not "What are your husbandry procedures," "Do you use RO/DI," "Do you overfeed," etc. It's always about the rock "cooking." If you aren't familiar with this procedure, it's basically something started by the same people who used to answer all algae issues with "Have you removed your sandbed yet?" instead of asking the probing questions I've previously mentioned. This "go bare bottom" trend was sold as a cure-all that was going to forever remove the chances of a tank having algae problems. When it turned out that the people who were blaming their sandbed for their problems still had algae issues after removing it, the next step was not to question their husbandry but to blame the rocks. They say that "uncooked" rocks leach phosphate (didn't we hear the same thing about sandbeds?) and through their "shedding" constantly dump detritus into the tank. Their solution is to "cook" the rocks by (and this is a somewhat simplified version of the treatment, but it should suffice) removing them from the aquarium, putting them in a dark container for months while swishing them every week or so. At the end of the process, you have what is, in my opinion, dead rock, although the proponents of this treatment claim that somehow only nuisance organisms are killed. One thing that leads me to believe that this process doesn't work is that many people have algae problems after "cooking" their rocks; these people are told that they didn't "cook" them long enough, or that they just need to do it again--it's not uncommon to hear that you need to do this every few months.

I want your opinion on this in the hope that people will be more likely to listen to you than to me. Is this cutting off the leg to save the toe? It seems to me to be a very desperate maneuver and unlikely to offer any longterm results compared to a thorough look at what factors caused the problem to begin with. If this is such a necessity (and it is being promoted as something you have to do to keep algae out of your tank, as eventually the rocks will leach so much phosphate that your tank will crash) how come nobody that I know with a nice, algae-free tank has ever "cooked" their rocks?

Thanks for your help.