As long as your tree is living, you can be sure only that the nodes immediately proximal to the pinch will produce new branches in the leaf axil (crotch) if the node has a leaf, of from immediately above a leaf bundle scar (scar on the stem where a leaf was attached). The probability of new lateral branching occurring diminishes with their distance from the pinch. IOW, the first node below the pinch is certain to produce a new branch, so long as the tree lives. The second node below is less likely, the third even less likely than the second, and so on. If you pinch around the summer solstice when the plant is in the most robust part of the growth cycle, the response will be more enthusiastic, and hard pruning of healthy trees in summer produces the best back-budding.

For ficus, with healthy trees in summer, I often defoliate completely or pinch the branch tip, cut the most distal leaf in half, and defoliate the rest of the branch.

Pruned and wired same day as picture above was taken:

Al - I am willing to risk this plant on a complete defoliation. Is that one of the only methods to getting new leaves along the entire stem, again? i.e. forcing buds to break top to bottom.

If a tree is in an elevated state of vitality and in the part of the growth cycle where it's photosynthesizing ability is at/near peak, defoliation can be a very good way of forcing enthusiastic back-budding and getting rid of ratty foliage. If your tree is just limping along, defoliation probably isn't going to advance its journey toward perfection on this astral plane. You can count on a response, but a comparatively lackluster one by comparison if you defoliate a tree that most growers wouldn't think of describing as robust or vibrant.

I've learned several things about hard pruning and defoliation. The healthier the tree is and the more energy it's making at the time it's pruned or defoliated, the stronger will be it's back-budding response, compared to other trees of the species; and trees that are reluctant to back-bud from nodes or adventitious buds can be counted on to back bud further (proximally) from the pruning cut.

In apically dominant trees like Ficus, as a branch grows, leaves form along it's length. Generally speaking, the formation of new branches lateral to the axis of the branch is suppressed by the tree's apical dominance, but that can be over-ridden by reducing the flow of auxin (the suppressant that keeps buds dormant) or by leaf injury/loss or loss of or injury to the branch's apical meristem. Cultural conditions your trees appreciate can also over-write the tree's natural predisposition toward apical dominance. This is easiest to understand if you think of your tree, even though lateral growth is being suppressed, as making so much energy/food it can't use it or store it fast enough, so in it's desperation to find a place to put all that energy, it grows new branches (and roots). If your tree is not growing it's dying; this, because in order to grow, a tree must make more energy than it requires to keep its systems orderly.

I don't know that I answered your question directly yet, but the answer IS in what I said.

Al