The bottom line is that I'm wondering if there is any such thing as too dense a scrog? Is this enough foliage as to be counter productive? Scrolling back just a few pages here and scanning the pictures, I'm going to guess the answer is "No" -- it's not too much of a good thing?
I'm going to answer my own question, now that this run has finished. The answer is
YES, there is such a thing as a scrog that is too dense. The plants suffered, the scrog was overcrowded and weak, the buds were small. Lesson learned. That was my third indoor grow (each cycle I've had two spaces). I've worked on soil, lights, temps and humidity, and now I've come to understand that for optimal overall health, a plant also simply needs a certain amount of space to be.
Initially when I got into scrogs, it was because I was working with CFLs and I wanted a flat even canopy. My understanding was that part of the theory is that if you spread your plants horizontally, more of the lower/side buds have a chance to become viable because they get more direct light. The idea was the more bud sights the better.
I've found that works to a degree. In the future, if I use a scrog it will be more to separate and widen the plant -- similar to what well done LST'ing would do -- and then to support the stems as the buds get heavy. I will not attempt to create as many bud sites as possible anymore. Everything from the health of the plant to the quality of the smoke seems to improve when there are fewer larger buds, rather than many smaller ones. Just my $.02, YMMV.
This picture is about a week before taking them down. The plants had grown into each other so intensely, that it was chaos taking them down and untangling them. One produced immature worthless buds, the dominant one in the center put out 3+ oz's of good bud, one made about 1.3 oz's of good bud, but would have done three times that amount given ample space.