for years i just always just broke my stuff up by hand, but now that i use a grinder, i will never go back to just breaking it up by hand... i love my grinder and my grinder loves me, lol... but i honestly think that just throwing a big nug into a bowl or bong without breaking it up before hand is a waste.. it never burns nearly as well as it would if broken or ground up first, and i feel that alot of times you will notice that what starts off looking like a small nug, when you throw it in a grinder, you end up with a nice big pile of herb.. alot bigger than you would have thought it would have been just looking at the nug.. and i also think that grinding it up first helps to release the taste and smell much better than not doing it... take a nice nug for yourself... check it out.. snap it, flick it, rub it down, lol... give it a nice sniff and remember how it smells.. now take that same nug and throw it in a good grinder and now give it a nice whiff.. i am sure that you will agree that the aroma is much stronger after it comes out of a grinder...