For sure you're losing bag appeal but it concentrates the cannabinoids and gets rid of a lot of water soluble components. I make most of my pot into oils and edible oil products for medicinal use so don't much care about what it looks like.
I did try water curing once and kind of forgot about it for a few days and had to throw it out. Now for most I just snip off anything without sugar on it and toss it in the freezer for later processing. Some of the nicest colas will be slo-dried for a few weeks then spend a few more weeks in jars for burping. A few friends like to smoke a nice joint and I do like a hit in the pipe in the evenings.
I have arthritis in my hands pretty bad so try to avoid trimming more than I have to. I make a lot of dry sift then strip what's left from the sifted pot with naphtha so that pot doesn't need to be cured. Curing loses a lot of terpenes too that I'd rather have in my medicine. Making a lot of RSO these days for the wife to hopefully fight the tumours in her liver. More testing for her in March.