I base it on 30 years of organic farming......not gardening. The only time I've used banding of any sort was when planting corn. Corn is a very heavy feeder it's whole life and the banding with an organic fertilizer was to get it off to a good start. The soil and top dressed amendments carried it out to harvest. That area got chopped up, layer of compost and planted with a cover crop for the winter with legumes or hairy vetch and Elbon rye.Glad to hear that you've found something that is working for you. I've used trenches in all the sips I've run and had great luck with them. I've even experimented with something similar in regular pots on a much smaller scale. That said, I know enough to know that sometimes we do things that we attribute our success to, that had nothing to do with our actual success. And that said... I tend to repeat what works for me. Isn't being human confusing? LOL
I'm always growing different strains, and looking for a set up that can work for the widest variety of strains possible. The idea that leaving the vast majority of the soil without nutes so that light feeders are not overwhelmed, and then leaving an ample resource at their disposal which allows heavy feeders to have access to all they need, makes sense, if that's how it actually works. Are you basing your criticism of trenches on science or experience?
My base media is quite a good a good start. It has plenty of amendments. My added amendments build upon that. When mixing in the tote, everything I add will encourage microbial activity thru the entire media. I add a product that will moderate the media, kinda like the dolomite lime, and will provide housing for the microbes at the same time. It;s a micronized humic acid and biochar product. HumiChar by The Andersons.. I found out that Daz from Night Own uses their humic acid product in his media mix. I told him about their HumiChar product and how well it works in the lawn. We'll see if he starts using it in future mixes.
My main point to all this rambling is that it's better to encourage an expansive root system. With the plant's more expansive root system, it's easier for the plant to draw from the microbes the nutes it needs. In this grow in EBs, I'll be mainly feeding microbes and my worms that in turn feed the plant what the plant tell the microbes what it needs.
Does the banding work? Sure it does. The question is does it work better.
Thanks for your input and the discussion. I luv organics and I'm ALWAYS looking for different ideas and methods.
Mixing your nutes throughout your media gives the microbes more area to do their work to make it available to the plant. This will help the roots spread fully thru the media better and helps make all your other amendments available.. If you band it, the microbes can only work some of the nutes and the roots will tend to mainly to that area. With perfect moisture in the EBs, it just makes more sense to have more microbial activity throughout the entire media VS mostly concentrated activity in a single area. Sure there still will be microbial area all over the banded pot, but it will be concentrated and the rootball won't be as extensive.
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OF that I've mildly augmented, and then doing something akin to trench methodology in the hopes that the light feeders will avoid it, and the heavy feeders will access it as need be. And now I can see in a whole new light the limitations of this plan, thanks to your descriptions of root zones and nutrient access. 
