If you do not balance charge, you leave the charger no way to monitor individual cell voltages. If there is a prob with a cell, the charger may not see it and can allow that cell to go ahead and 'go off' since the charger will only see total voltage. We've had incidents where a lipo went off reporeted here and caused damage inside a poster's room that wouild have been prevented if he had balanced charged instead of just charged.

You give up a layer of safety when you do not bal;ance charge. I always balance charge. To me, thats the reason you have a balancing charger. Is it really that much of a prob to connect the balance wires? The best of of maintaining your lipo is to insure it starts discharges with the cells at or near the same voltage, the way you do that is by balance charging.