Once again the wrong terminology leads to confusion. The word pinching can allude to using the fingertips which invariably leads to bruised foliage (crushed cells which die and go brown - intact cells which result from pulling them apart do NOT go brown).
When refining the outline of the juniper we ''pluck'' the tiny green points which jut out from the profile. This is the way to produce lush clouds of foliage. These days the look of shimpaku has changed from the 30's to 70's in Japan when these more natural billowing and lush foliage masses were preferred to the more slick, unnatural, modern, Kimura, plastic, contrived look with dead straight and level undersides to the branches. (sorry I just had to include that little rant) But anyway, You don't HAVE to employ the ''plucking'' but if you want density and refinement you will want to. Thinning out with scissors is obviously needed periodically just as it is with any other tree but saying that the only way to manage junipers and avoid weakness or tip browning is to only clip back more mature branchlets with scissors and avoid plucking is plainly not accurate.
. It's greatly appreciated! 
