I am usually the very last person on the face of the planet to argue for a low chop, but this tree is still going to be too tall if you chop to the 2nd left branch. Doing this kind of thing in more than one step serves no purpose. I understand that Benjamin don't respond to this well, but doing this in more than one felled swoop only prolongs pain. IMHO
Yup. Ficus B's suck at backbudding on hardwood that's far-away from active growth sites, it "happens" and it happens often enough but it is incredibly correlated to the specimen's current growth rate (ie when bursting w/ first&second flushes of the growing-season I'll get random backbudding, but would never depend on it for a ficus.b (not even during summer, even though I imagine I'd get at least 3-outta-4 to backbud)
That specimen will surely die, sorry to say OP
My 1st-ever trunk chop was also a ficus.b, yeah it will stay green under-bark (vascular tissue) for quite a while, I must've spent 2.5-->3.5 months watching mine slowly die, hoping on a backbudding that never happened (tree, originally, was my topiary, was around 5-6' tall, had no foliage below 4.5', trunk was about 3.5->4" at base (before flare/nebari) Sorry but this time of year I wouldn't hold my breath on that guy, if it was in burgeoning vegetative growth *and* daylight-hours were increasing then maybe but neither of those is the case (actually if you're doing artificial lighting you may be able to negate the shorter-days // semi-dormancy phenomena) But it'd have to be in vigorous growth in most cases (when the chop is made)
Good luck in any case, cool to see you do so much from 1 specimen!! Re the defoliating, don't do it (I mean, if a leaf is clearly past its prime then sure remove it, otherwise leaves are solar panels, they're food&resource builders IE growth-accelerators, you only remove leaves if you need access for working the branches, or to force the tree to push a 2nd, smaller flush of foliage (which isn't good for the tree, though it will make it look better for a show...but right now, your only concerns on those specimen are horticultural AKA what is best for the growth/health and removing good leaves never fits with that!