reefkprZ, you stir up your DSB? I was always under the impression one should never touch a DSB.
When you say that you "WAY over skim" how do you know it's too much?
From your description of feeding it sounds like you need a larger skimmer.
I'm happy to read your feeding your tank, so many reefers tend to starve their tanks to try to control algae. I follow a similar feeding schedule and have a rather large skimmer for my tank now. It's my opinion that you can't over skim a tank. This is based on using a normal sized skimmer. Of course if your skimmer holds 10X the volume of your tank water, over skimming may apply
I would not worry about a skimmer removing trace elements. I think the trace elements are used up rather quickly by the coral in the tank. Finding a good brand of additives and sticking to a dosing regimen is just part of feeding the tank.
There are some great tanks with no skimmers, but they employ other methods of nutrient removal. Your algae scrubber idea could work, but you would have to size it appropriately, the larger the better. The idea of using aiptasia to filter the water has always been interesting, but who has done research as to how many aiptasia you need? I had a huge aiptasia problem in my system, I can't say I saw a decrease in water quality when I finally eradicated them. I think you would need a massive amount of them to make a dent compared to what a decent skimmer can do. If you like I'll be happy to supply you with some starter aiptasia, I believe there are still some lurking in my sump