Response to Continuous vs Intermittent agitation - finding

I'm kinda confused here as it was my understanding that continuous agitation _did_ impair edge effects, thus sharpness. Anchell & Troop write on page 31 of “The Film Developing Cookbook” Agitation may be the least understood step in the development process...continuous agitation...also increases the rate of development in the highlights, suppresses the adjacency effects which enhance film sharpness...”. Under the heading JOBO rotary processors (page 34) they go on to say “Many photographers like to develop film with continuous agitation in a JOBO rotary processor. Unfortunately continuous agitation interferes with the formation of sharpness-enhancing edge effects”. Everything I’ve read except Henry’s "Controls in Black and White Photography” seems to agree to this. Isn’t agitation or more correctly minimal agitation in dilute developers what Rodinal @ 1+100 or (T)FX2 and stand development is all about. I keep rereading the original post (good testing, John) and thinking “what am I missing”.

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