Bill, there is no guideline that is actually foolproof and there are many ways to skin cats but the method you quote I originally learned form Bas van den Ende and was how he taught pruning crews in the 1990's when he worked as a consultant for several huge commercial Washington growers that still grew a lot of fruit on free standing trees. It is well known that pruning tends to delay fruiting of pomes so the idea here is to prune as little as possible while creating a balanced, compact tree. You have no contact info with the forum so maybe you should e-mail me.

My wife was in Queens last weekend and saw a line which was more than half a mile long (she originally said a mile, but I plugged the end-points into Google maps and got .6 miles). The lines seem to drop off pretty quick as you go into CT. On Monday night around 10pm, I saw 20+ cars waiting in line in Greenwich, CT, with police ensuring order. I drove about 15 minutes away (not searching for gas- I wasn't that low) and decided to get it in Norwalk when I passed a place with no wait. I was even able to pull through to the 2nd pump :) In terms of the storms, last night's snow storm was worse for my trees than Sandy. All sandy did in my yard was damage some fences and remove a lot of the still-green peach leaves. They looked almost plucked after the storm, though I'm guessing it won't hurt them at this stage in the year. The worst part was 5 days with no power and 7 days with no internet at home. Yesterday's snow snapped a bit off the top of a central leader, just over the top tie, when it weighed down the leaves. Another tree had a couple upper branches badly scraped when the snow weighed them down enough to rub against the support post. It was one of the few trees where I used a green 7' U post, which have some sharp edges. Going forward, I'm using all 10.5' tall 1.375" galvanized posts with no edges to rub against. The one downside is that there are no holes in the post I can tie to.

Its as simple as that with these shrubs. I'd do as Ken mentioned very soon though. Otherwise you can do some minor pruning now then do the more drastic pruning late winter/early spring right before or as the bud start swelling. You'll be surprised at home much nicer they'll look. Just don't be afraid the cut it back. To get a more rounded look, prune back further on the outer stems than you do the middle stems.

Ken, it was me who used this link for helping Bob pruning some conifers in his garden. It was a great help for the both of us, we couldn't do this job without it :0) I'll put this link back soon when I've some time, you will need it for your big Juniperus pfitzeriana (x) 'Daub's Frosted' ;0)