I'm not sure I follow you, Placebo effect? where does that come in, all the Reedgeek does is give you a way to alter reeds, yes it's expensive and I wouldn't have bought one myself but now I have one I have no problem in using it.
This is what I do when I'm working o reeds:
After playing the reed, should have been soaking up water for some hours, and you find that some tones is not playing so well. How the reed is playing decide what to do. I don't work on reeds which are playing well.
I work on on a piece of plexiglas which is laying on a table. Not holding the reed with my hands.
If a reed is not playing well I hold it up against light and try to see which part I should work on. A reed should be symmetric "V shaped".
Always work on a wet reed.
Pressure in the fibre direction.
To work on reeds is a combo of working with your ears and eyes. I have to play a reed several times during the process.
When I work on reeds my tools are; wet stones (more than one), plexiglas, razor blade/scalpel, feeler gauge, fine sandpaper, reed trimmer, a piece of linen, (drills + leaf saw).
I don't want to turn down the reed geek. Seems to be lots of enthusiasm and joy among the guys that are involved and players who are using the reed geek. They are selling klangenbogen as well. I think we are free to "like differnt".