I specifically bought new barbed hooks when I went to Chain Lake on saturday but that's a stocked lake and we planned to keep everything and leave when we limited out. Turns out fishing was slow and we only got 22 between 8 people, without barbs it would've been less. In open water you have more rod to keep tension and it's easier to land a fish barbless than through the ice.
Barbless hooks are no question easier to remove. I agree that for ice fishing you can get more fish to your hands than open water with barbed hooks. For me I will stay barbless for pike fishing, because who wants downtime trying to removed gorged barbed hooks. Ice fishing lakers barbed hooks will help you get fish up from 100'+ water. the hooks are almost all of the time just in the end of the lip and removal is very easy even with barbed hooks. So for me it depends what fish your after and what style of fishing you are doing. Hey what a concept......actually having a choice of what to do,rather than being told what to do!!
Well, that was a long read. I can't help but think that our governments propensity toward omnibus legislation is creating havoc for the enforcement department. This is just the beginning.