Marty.

I personally am not a fan of removing productive leaves; plants grow leaves because they need them. I let the growths get big enough that I feel comfortable handling them, just like babies from a leaf. I think you will find when you do separate them that you are happy you left the leaves on as the babies will have more foliage to sustain them.
I have never had success with blossom propagation. Maybe it's my growing conditions, my methods of growing but sucker growing is much easier so I stick with that.

Linda

I do prefer the decapitation method more-so for chimera propagation. Of course I save the top crown and re-root it just in case I lose the base (which occasionally happens when you introduce such a trauma).

I also do not try to thin out the crown until the leaves are big enough to distinguish which is just a leaf and which is a crown. I also prefer to keep about 3 older leaves to help sustain the plant as the new suckers get formed.