Which is better a bought reef or.....

[Europhyllia]

Do you do crowd control by trimming back corals or do you let nature take its course and let stuff just grow in together?
Thoughts?

I am going to combine my answer with what Allan posted about how nature tends to repeat itself rather than have a willy nilly mix of all kinds of different bits. Kind of like a field of wild flowers. You see the same ones repeatedly. And that's what makes it believable for me -natural looking.
I had a Large Polyp Gorgo that had grown really well get eaten up by a purple gorgo that touched it. So I cut off the tip, cut out the injured part and placed the new frag somewhere else.
Or a Knobby Searod just getting too long and looking goofy -cut it into 3 pieces and place those in a little group.
Gorgos and macro can put out stuff that's harsh on other corals so the gorgos are usually the winners.
With gorgos getting so tall and exiting the water they either need to be moved or frag-trimmed. And yes, I do that. But now that I have multiples of stuff it makes it even better looking in my opinion - more natural.
Just like Allan's diving observation.
My goal is to replicate a natural reef though. Others may see their tank more as a showcase of different corals than anything replicating nature.