When propagating from stem cuttings it's understood one removes flowers, buds, shortens side branches, reduces a percentage of leaves etc. in order to allow more of the plants resources to focus on developing roots.

After removing 1/3 to 1/2 of the lower branches & leaves I used to then, reduce the amount of remaining leaves by entirely snipping off most of the leaves, leaving on only several of the smaller leaves (intact).

I later read a slightly different recommendation. (I cannot cite the exact source but, as I recall, it was not just someone spewing on the internet but rather an old (1930/40's?) horticulturalist book.)

Rather than totally eliminating some and leaving others, it suggests instead to
leave on more of the leaves but reduce the size of the individual leaves by cutting 1/3 to 1/2 off each.

This was supposed to, somehow, be better; possibly for branching?

To me, intuitively, it seemed more likely to increase transpiration, introduce disease and perhaps unnecessarily increase shock.

Since then I've tried both methods and have had failures and successes with both but with no noticeable patterns.
Can anyone shed any light on this: how or why --assuming the same amount of total leaf surface area-- leaving more partial leaves could be better than fewer intact undamaged leaves?