Hi Treeman and Oldtimer,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Two things prompted me to post that initial message in which I defended the climbing skills of our team:
First, there were a couple of postings (admittedly quite old!) on here that definitely seemed to suggest that researchers only cared about their research and not the climbing techniques or the trees themselves.
Second, in a recent video (Ascending the Giants) the recreational climbers cited their techniques as ones that tall-tree canopy researchers should learn from. They went on to use a Big Shot to shoot into the lowest branch, which would have then required lanyarding up and thereby impacting the lifeforms on many branches throughout the crown.
At any rate, I hope I haven't offended anyone on here, as that was certainly not my intent. I suppose that these sorts of misunderstandings often arise because of lack of communication, so thank you again for communicating with me.
All the best, and happy climbing!
~MEA