[johnkeegan]

I'm surprised you wrote about plant respiration. I thought it was common knowledge that landscape fabric is porous to air and water. Hold it up to light and you can see tiny pinholes of light passing through. These tiny holes allow plenty of air and water to pass through but are small enough to hinder most (not all) weed runners and suckers.
Again, I thought this was common knowledge so I'm surprised your "expert" was unaware of this.
I do wonder sometimes if many landscapers are turned off by landscape fabric because they've only used the cheap stuff. Products like the DeWitt Pro 5 I mentioned are MUCH more expensive than the 2 and 3 oz. weight products. But guess what? You get what you pay for. Many of my customers ask to buy some off me for themselves because it's simply not sold anywhere. Even my local wholesale nursery stop stocking it because they say most guys want the cheaper stuff.
By the way "freezing and thawing" of the soil do not cause the fabric to pop up. It simply wasn't installed properly. For instance, some guys leave large folds or flaps when they lay it and it surfaces after a few heavy rains. Or they lay it over stumps, rocks etc. Or they extend the mat too close to the bed edge and the mowing guy snags it.