When I was researching sumps a couple months ago, it seems I read "less is more" a lot too when it comes to flow. It is for the same reasons as you mentioned, you want your skimmer to skim and skim and skim that water so the longer it is down there the more effective it will be. Also for your fuge you want the water moving a little but not real strong either, to give the pods and sponges and whatever else a good chance filtering out bad crap from the water, and a little flow is what macro likes and grows best in, so they say.
My 2 cents!
Heidi