Thoughts on top roping hard trad.

So for context I climb in the uk, the land of weird ethics, and strange unwritten rules.

In general it would seem that trad is seen as a ground up affair, and have heard many conversations discounting people’s sends, or implying that the grade changes if you have top roped the route first.
Having a pad removes an e grade is another concept that gets talked about a lot. Basically it all seems to revolve around keeping the risk of injury as high as possible if you were to fall off.

One of the highlights was being told I’ve ruined a climb for myself because I seconded it. I haven’t led this particular route yet but I have sent the same grade ground up, and onsited one grade lower.

Personally this all seems a bit like macho nonsense, the consequences of the lead attempt don’t change. The ground doesn’t become a bouncy castle, and the gear doesn’t get any better. And it would seem that it’s pretty common place for routes to be top roped first when you get into really hard trad, which is widely accepted as fine.

Interested to hear some other opinions on this, I think personally I’m going to start chucking a rope in most new trad routes I want to climb because I value my non broken bones.