By the way, Smoke you know I am only returning the favor here... looking at your progression pics, I think you did the right move with these trees. In the end you will be more happy with the fact that you bit the bullet and decided to start over on them and are now able to grow the trees as you had envision them being, with the main branches in the locations that you want them, rather than just settling...
Which is a good lesson to learn for some of those newer to Bonsai and perhaps life... sometimes you have to take two steps backwards in order to move forward.
I do have a question though, seeing that I am not as familiar with maples, I would like to learn your thought process on how you plan on developing these trees.
My question is, that when developing the branch structure of these trees, I see that you are not allowing the branches to run free to thicken up to a desired thickness that would be appropriate for the trunk size before cutting back and developing further, but instead have chosen to develop along the way gradually building up this thickness, while at the same time developing the trees ramification with secondary branches and so on... Is this a better way to deal with maples do you feel?
Reasoning behind me asking, is that common teaching among the bonsai community in dealing with taper in branches, would be the former... that one should grow out the branches, letting them run free to develop thickness, then cut beck, repeat the process, then at a later time begin to start developing the finer branch structure...
Now, why I have brought this up, is that I have found through working on alot of my deciduous trees that yes, it takes longer to develop the taper within the branches not going this route, but at the same time one makes up for it in the end in several ways... the first being that you are already beginning work on the ramification within the trees finer branches. That by not allowing the branch to run, you are limiting the space between nodes allowing for a tighter branch structure, and lastly the branch has the appearance of looking more natural, unlike the stair stepping feel of the alternative route.
With some material, like perhaps tropicals, that easily bud back and that often don't seem to follow typical node paterns, I could see where you would instead prefer to cut and replace. Where as with maples, again my knowledge here is limited, but it would seem going this route could work, but would in the end require more work...
Just curious what your thoughts on this were... and perhaps some one reading might learn along the way? We might have to start an argument before anyone actually reads it though...