My concern is the all or nothing approach. For those that would like to try some steps, do you feel making some adjustments would yield some improvements? Example, would removing splashing help at all? Would spunding create any improvement?
Indeed, this is probably the MOST voiced concern there is. There are varying degrees of "it" and those varying degrees are how much polyphenols in the malt are being consumed by oxygen.
Example:
A preboil only and no SMB, you will get a noticeably paler wort and you will notice a increase in flavor. however its going to be not nearly as much as a preboil and SMB treatment. The SMB is a very nice way to control these reactions, but its not fool proof.
The easiest way I would have a go at it is this:
Use the yeast method(personally I find the flavor to be a little more flat with this method, but for this purpose its pretty fail safe).
If no sparge use a 50mgl dose, if not use full. Minimize all splashing and stirring
Target less than 10% boil off
Ferment cooler with no ramping, keep that fermentation at 50f or below.
Either spund with some extract remaining OR ferment to gravity and sugar prime the keg.
You should net some EASILY identifiable results from this, and its pretty easy peasy with what most have on hand.