I attended the Tony Lapratt boot camp several years ago. If I remember correctly his property was around 50 acres. Hinge cutting, micro plots, and scrape encouragement was the basic scheme of the place. The property was amazing in the amount of habitat manipulation. The place "hunted big" meaning it seemed more like 200 acres because of walls of cover screens. It was quite impressive.
His hinge cut beds were well used, to the point that I wondered if someone artificially placed all the deer hair, poop, rubs, etc. I guess I can be a bit cynical sometimes.
So I came home and made a bunch of hinge cuts and I made them in areas likely to be used.
Very few ever showed any sign of deer actually laying down in them.
Hinge cutting does have it's place. I believe it is very effective to steer deer a little closer to your stand. You find a good stand tree with a great trail passing it, but it's 5 or 10 yards too far for an ethical shot. Properly placed hinge cuts can bump them your way.
There's lots of uses for hinge cuts.
And as
@BackSpasm said, Habitat Talk forum is great for all things habitat.
But I'd agree with the OP on adding a sub forum here.
And while we are talking about forum layout...
Why is the deer contest not located on the bottom of the page? Crazy to have to scroll down past contest discussions that are almost 10 years old.