“Not too ugly” Ha! That's one of the nicest I have ever seen!
I would love to see a year by year play of any photos you might have. It would be nice to ponder the development of such a great tree.
I have repeatedly read otherwise in the healing issue but can't argue with your results. It is suggested sealing wounds helps with ginkgo and the claim is that the cuts dry out causing unpredictable die back. Have you experienced this? Perhaps some sort of sealant is a serious necessity for ginkgo bonsai. General (scientific) thought seems to be that trees in general don't need sealing and it's mostly a sales gimmick. (That is to say for normal trees) But then there is bonsai where everything seems to help, hinder, or matter in some way. Another method is to clip leaving an inch or so and remove it later after it has dried.
I have two other methods. One is to clip only the very tip of the bud (like about 1/64 inch or less) I use a fingernail clipper and you don't have to remove much at all. The bud will leaf out and be a short bud -even a leader. If you do it right it doesn't even effect the shape of the leaves. It might start growing again end of season and especially the next spring so stay on top of it. I use this for a branch that is already the length I want and want to restrain it from getting bigger but still have a healthy set of leaves. The second is to plan ahead and clip the green shoots leaving one inch or so past the last node you want to keep. Often the bud will not be pointed in the direction you might like so I wire it (Very) loosely and bend the protruding stick to reorient the bud. (All while the branch is still green) The wire needs to be removed in about a month or it will make marks even if still mostly loose. If I still want the branch bent more, I wrap the wire again but in the opposite direction.
All of this is prefaced in that your growing the tree into the shape and size you want and maintaining it there rather than letting it grow and clipping it back.
Lastly I read a university experiment where they defoliated 2 growing (actively elongating) long shoots about half way then periodically the rest of the leaves at various intervals. (they didn't give specifics on the periodic removal of the second half of the leaves) The 2 defoliated branches grew 47% and 52% compared to the un-defoliated shoot which grew 317%. I am thinking that a branch that was completely defoliated would stop elongating and simply reestablish buds at the base of the removed leaves. -at least for the season, no branch clipping required, no marks, and no places to heal. Just the leaf stems which fall off in the fall.
What I don't have and really want is a way to make a particular bud grow as a long shoot, rather than a short bud.