TIM pedal and buffers

[arfy]

In the recent thread on the TIM pedal, the maker commented that the TIM doesn't have input and output buffers.  I have a TIM and it is my personal favorite, very transparent even with a fair amount of grind, very punchy, not compressed sounding to me, and best of all it doesn't do what I call the 'disappearing guitar effect pedal' syndrome, like most of the Boss and TS types to in my opinion, the more distortion you use with those pedals, the more distant your guitar sounds.  I'm wondering what part the lack of buffers plays in that, if any.  I'm currently working on a General Guitar Gadgets Tube Screamer project, with their board and one of their little boards to wire up a charge pump and get about 17 volts to run the effect.  The GGG version is true bypass so a lot of the Tube Screamer circuit can be left out, but the buffers are still there.  I'm wondering if there's a fairly simple method to try it both ways, maybe insert the wire from the switch right after the buffer, although that would lose the pulldown resistor.  
Any thoughts?

[petemoore]

I like 'em without buffers.
 Tube Reamer...but I put a buffer on the other side of a dual OA to drive a tone control...or choose Alexa [has more controls and a different sound].
 If I were to wire a switch on a buffer [now] I'd use a DPDT and True Bypass it.
 I've wondered about a simple 'wire' to negate/connect past a tone control though, but I don't really know how much tone sucking this would cause since there are connections to ground through passives in a TC....so I think now, maybe a SPDT...to lift the TC ground and connect past the TC..

[arfy]

Maybe I should build a Tube Reamer, there's very little circuitry in there, in fact it only uses a single opamp like a 741, right?
One thing about the TIM is I think he has the treble and bass controls voiced just perfectly, the bass rolls off pre- and the treble rolls of post-distortion, both controls are cut only, when I first got the pedal I tried to use the tone controls as little as possible but eventually discovered I like to cut frequencies quite a bit in both directions.