So, you admit clear cuts are worthless. Yes they are. Maybe you should spend more time in the woods and less on the internet. Deer will only eat laurel when pressed for food? I think you have laurel confused with rhodadendren. You can cut open the stomach of a deer with gallons of acorns in it and there is still laurel mixed in.
Around here the PGC is starting to do controlled burns instead of clearcuts. They move slow, but they finally got with reality. Thinking the understory will come back with no deer to eat it is just stupid. I still hike around in an area that HAD a lot of big deer in it back in the late 70's. Down in the bottoms there is no regeneration now that the deer are thinned down to a handful. When the Alt crew wanted to make a point, they fenced off an area and limed the hell out of it. I have watched a clear cut on top of a mountain in WV for about 20 years. It is still worthless. Once the slashings get above the deer, it grows to about 15 feet and dies. The scrap chokes out anything of value and chokes itself out. You can easily walk through that clear cut now and for the last 15 years. There is a whole lot more to management than the crap you read on the internet.