Therapy, I would never argue with you or anyone else on a fish site. We all have the same purpose, to try to teach Noobs through our experience. These are my experiences and of course I am not the God of fish so I could be totally wrong.
I get my experiences mostly from diving and spending time with the creatures we are trying to keep. (not usually tourist diving) I try very hard not to just repeat what someone else heard someplace unless I can see pictures or hear a lot of experience. Like you said, a new tank is 2 or 3 years old, I would say 5-8 years old.
I have been dealing with algae since 1952 when I started my first tank and I m sure in that time I killed more fish than Starkist Tuna.
I am positive other people have other valid things to add.
I'm truly not sure if this supports your theory or not, but I used to have the dreaded green bubble algae and (knock on wood), I haven't seen it in my tank in several months.
I did try a lot of things to get rid of it. Changing water, emerald crabs, gfo, manual extraction, dancing ritualistically during a full moon (well...maybe not). But, truly, I don't credit any of those things with working. I think it just went away one day. I have no idea why.
I do think an algae scrubber like you have is a good idea. I bought one. Maybe someday I'll install it.
This type of post has been around since the 60s and unfortunately will probably always be around.
I realize many people, especially Noobs want an easy fix for algae, but there is none. I also wish we would curtail telling people that nitrates and phosphates cause algae, as it does not. We should, of course try our hardest to reduce these pollutants, but not because of algae as it won't help. You can see the picture I posted from Hawaii. I don't know how much nitrates and phosphates are off a remote Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but hair algae is all over the place because for some reason, the herbivores disappeared along with the large predators like sharks. Hair algae is natural and as a matter of fact a healthy substance as it will purify the water better than any product you can buy, do it naturally and for free. How is that! Yes, we don't want it on our corals, I don't either but if it "wants" to grow for whatever reason that only the algae knows, it will grow no matter what you do or buy. It is a self limiting substance and luckily for us, temporary. The algae of the OP, which is not hair algae by the way, will, if left alone, deplete whatever it is living on as well as removing other questionable substances leaving the water much purer than it was before. Adding store bought substances are sometimes a good Idea for certain things but they won't work for algae. I sometimes use Chemi Clean or Poly Filters for situations, but never for algae because even if you manage to eliminate the algae with a product, you are not eliminating all the things algae lives on. Only algae can do that and it should be allowed to grow in a place where we want it to grow. I know it is the goal of almost everyone to have an algae free system, but that is totally un-natural and more important, un-healthy. Algae is growing because it is supposed to grow as it does on every healthy reef in the sea. If you dive you will see millions of tangs, rabbitfish and algae bleenies all over the reef, at night they will be replaced by hordes of urchins, slugs, snails and chitins, guess what they are eating? No, not Happy Meals.
I thin many people would have much healthier reefs if we kept the natural and let algae do what it is supposed to do just as it does in the sea. Remember that our corals are also filled with algae.
I took this last year off a mangrove Island on Ley Largo. Covered in algae.
This is my tank over 20 years ago covered in Hair algae. I didn't do anything except pull it off manually until it depleted what it wanted. It left on it's own. The corals were very healthy and even better after the algae purified the water. I still have that fireclown.
I also took this in Hawaii. You can see an urchin in every crevice. I don't see any hamburgers.
but that's OK, and I never, never get involved in algae threads but it sure seems like you guys like to spend money. I have said it before and I will say it one last time. Nitrates, phosphates and phases of the moon do not cause algae, and eliminating those two things will not kill it. The main thing people do is change water. Does that ever help? No. It doesn't. If it did, there would be no algae. Interesting that it grows the most on brand new, no nutrient tanks. Odd isn't it? Will adding phosban or snake oil work? No it won't. Well I have never tried snake oil so I can't comment. But the algae will get bored eventually and disappear which is the reason that virtually anything you do, or do not do will at one point work. Search back over years and years of algae threads and look at all the remedies. Eventually, the algae disappeared weather you did all of those things, or none. 
Have a great day 
