No reason to risk harming the torch if you don’t have to. Also, you still need a clean base to attach to the plug.

Most bubble corals grown like a cross between walling & branching, in that their skeleton grows very similar to a walling Hammer but it also separates into multiple walling pieces rather than just 1 connected piece, although like you say they usually retain some thin connective tissue to each other on the skeleton. I've found most bubbles to be very accepting of fragging & I usually have success fragging not just separate heads but also cutting straight through heads, sometimes dividing a single very large head into 10 separate frags. That said I do use a Gryphon Aquasaw which makes things easier but theres no reason it couldn't be done with a dremmel & a lot of care. I alway dip afterwards with iodine or frag recovery dip etc & superglue over the cuts I make to cover any porous holes I expose in the skeleton.

He doesn’t really aquaculture much except a few high end pieces and the zoas. Their model is to turn and burn through their incoming shipments instead of waiting for the pieces to grow.

Not something I'd do but I remember it was a done thing years ago! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pN2SbJWiqbelcqc.html