Ah. The notes are not a good place.

I'll start with this screenshot. Almost every word of this is a blatant lie.

Do not go to lawn care or landscaping websites for information on how nature works. They are not reliable sources, they are trying to sell you shit you don't need by fearmongering about natural processes.

The leaf layer conserves and absorbs water, helps mitigate flooding, and provides nutrients to the soil. Fallen leaves are the MAIN source of nutrients for the soil.

They "attract" beneficial insects that prey on pests and detritivores that break them down into nutrients.

Many butterflies (such as tiger swallowtails), stick bugs, many beetles (including ladybugs), and almost all moths are dependent on fallen leaves to hibernate in to survive the winter. If you landfill the leaves, you're literally throwing away a whole generation of beneficial insects.

Disease problems are so common in lawns because 1) they're monocultures, which are notoriously susceptible to disease and 2) people overwater them, partly because lawn soil is typically so severely compacted it can't absorb water. (Leaves help with water absorption!)

Also, having spent a lot of time in lawn care forums, 95% of the things people diagnose as fungus are not actually fungus, but instead yellowing due to extreme soil compaction, benign non-harmful mushrooms, cobwebs on the ground, polyester stuffing from a dog toy, literal algae growing on compacted mud that's being overwatered...

I don't know what I could possibly say that could top "I almost DIED because of the smell of rotting leaves."

Just pile them up in a flower bed, if you must. (But don't shred them.)

Wait what's your logic on not shredding them? Im not like a soil expert, but shredding the leaves makes them decompose like twice as fast or more. What factor am I not thinking of here?

Moths, butterflies, stick bugs, beetles etc. hibernate through the winter in the leaf layer.