Not sure where you think I quoted a couple of months, I never said that - I actually said that it would probably take hundreds of water changes.How many weeks in a couple of months, 8 or 80???? It's your analogy we quoting. You clearly believe that you have a clear understand on the effect of waterchanges vs phosphate, theoretical or practical???? I don't know; but if you feel your correctly advising people on the many ways to skin a cat then well done.
I have a decent understanding based on both theoretical and practical experience - I have had a tank in a similar position. Tried 50% weekly water changes for around 6 months (mainly because I didn't have room for a reactor in that set-up) and got absolutely no-where. Started dosing NOPOX and saw instant results. 1L bottle of NOPOX was $27 and will last that tank a couple of years (2ml a day - 500 days if dosed everyday - but more like 800 days as I have dropped back to every second day). Doing 60l changes instead of 20l changes each week cost me an extra $4 a week, $17.33 a month or $104 in that 6 months alone (which I also remind you, saw no results...).
NOPOX was great, however it is tedious dosing every day (or second day) and the cost would go up on larger tanks. So on my next tank, a 1000l setup - once my phosphates started to rise a cheap TLF150 reactor with rowaphos sorted out (and maintained) phosphates within a couple of days. No more dosing, set and leave for months at a time. Easy.
So although I never said to stop water changes, you did say that water changes alone are the cheapest answer which I have had direct experience to suggest that is not true. Not sure why you've got it out for me, I'm clearly just trying to share another opinion for a member based on my real world experience.