From my experience and not to tread on anyone's toes here is that yes, cutting the leaf off retaining the petiole or stem of the leaf is going to be the fastest way of returning new growth to the tree, seeing you have removed all the leaves, the tree needs to take in sunlight, so it is going to send out new growth in a hurry to replace the old. This process does induce a lot of stress to the the tree, so one needs to understand and evaluate the health of the tree.
Second option, reducing leaf size or cutting leaves. This process is going to be slower to return new growth, seeing that in essence the portion of the leaf that is left, is going to naturally still take in light, yet the tree is going to naturally want to repair the damage and send out other leaves. This process is less severe to the overall health of the tree, yet should not be taken lightly, since repeatedly doing it will quickly weaken the health of the tree as well.
Third process of ripping off leaves, is not really a practice of trying to promote new growth in the area where one is ripping the leaves off, seeing as has been mentioned before by Carp, one is removing further buds from growing in this area. Instead, this is a practice better used when one is not concerned with the area one is ripping from... so, for instance, if one has grown out a branch and one would like to start trying to chase back all new growth towards the base of the branch, so one might want to pull exterior leaves to do this... Having said this I can't really think of a reason why one would want to do this seeing that with most tropicals, one would be better off just cutting the branch back. Seeing that for the most part they will regularly send out new buds if cut hard... b- woods might be the exception, seeing that on old growth, sometimes if one cuts back past the foliage that is already there, one can risk the possible loss of the branch altogether. Usually, this has more to do with the spacing of the nodes, and the fact that the branch grew rather fast and the first nodes are far out. In such a case neither process would really work, the tree is not going to invent a node further back. Other types of tropicals might, not b-woods.
Now if I may offer up a 4th and 5th possibilities that from my own personal experience that I have found more successful at producing ramification than any of these discussed processes, is that one concern oneself with the type of soil and pot one is using, Seeing that a the amount of branching a tree produces is a direct reflection of the amount of fine roots one is able to maintain, a very coarse soil and a shallow pot allow for better air circulation within the soil, allowing for more roots, thus more branching.
The second scenario, being that far to often branches are left to long. And one tries to chase back growth. It is always much easier to grow out then chase back. So, cut the branching shorter, then from there allow a couple of branches to grow, cut them back and allow a couple more to grow, and so on... by the time all these new branches reach the length of where you want them to be you will have 16 branches all with the capability of producing more.
