I hope you don't mind me posting in this, Joe .......
I fed NLS wafers, and had Royal plecos die on me; it is not after I supplement my feeding scheme with wood and fresh veggies that I had success keeping them. I don't fault NLS, it still is a good wafer food and my plecos still eat them(so does my SDs); but I do not trust it to provide EVERYTHING my fancy plecos need.
Yet I know countless numbers of people who feed NLS to their plecos with zero issues, including an SA importer in my area, who feeds thousands of wild caught plecos NLS on a regular basis. (no veggies ever) A local hobbyist (and a sponsor/vendor here on MFK) has several wild caught "fancy" plecos in one of his 550 gallon show tanks, all in the 10-12" range, and none of them have ever seen, let alone eaten any type of fresh vegetable.
Having said that I will admit that
some wild plecos (such as panaques) may in fact do better with fresh veggies added to their diet, only because in some cases they will consume them with more vigor. That becomes a case by case situation that each hobbyist has to make a call on. From a nutrient standpoint they certainly don't require fresh veggies, and they most certainly don't require wood in their diet as most people believe.
I have been telling people for many years that panaques etc. don't eat wood for it's nutrient value, or for digestibility, they eat it as a secondary action when scraping the biofilm that grows on the wood.
Just recently there is now science to back that up.
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co....ome_catfish_really_eat_wood?&utm_content=html
Based on recent publications by Donovan German and his coauthors, it seems that they are not digesting the wood as was speculated in previous papers by Nelson and coauthors. They don't seem to have a gut anatomy designed to support the microorganisms that would be needed to break down the wood and, like other loricariids, have a very fast gut passage time.
The reality is a wild caught pleco (which most "fancy plecos are) can die in captivity from
numerous factors besides their diet. It could be due to how they were collected & handled, their overall condition of when they were collected, such as having internal parasites/pathogens etc (as many do) or even just the stress of living in captivity. Even with a proper necropsy performed it's not always a clear cut case of what a fish died from, yet you want to point the finger at their diet? Okay, fine, but I beg to differ. I too have kept my fair share of fancy plecos, and never had any die from malnutrition when feeding NLS.
My intent was only to question the benefits of feeding a variety of foods versus only one particular product.
Dan, I would suggest that you go back to that ridiculously long thread that you mentioned, and actually read what I posted about variety. That should clear things up for you. I also have no problem with anyone having their own personal preference as to what they feed, but please don't attempt to tell me that feeding ingredients such as corn flakes, dried bakery products,
alpha starch, soybean meal, rice bran, gluten meal and MSG are adding any type of quality of variety to a fishes diet.
That's where the whole "variety is the spice of life" logic goes right out the window.
And not to worry about this topic becoming
ridiculously long, I don't plan on going 'round & 'round about any of this. I'm personally getting tired of banging my head against a wall.
Best of luck with your fish, Joe.
)... But it definitely worked, he had great results, and he is feeding NLS exclusively now, I believe. 
What I find very interesting is the polarization you see on this subject. Why do so many people find it necessary to choose sides? In the immortal words of Rodney King "Can we all get along?" 
