Ohh no, if I can't find anyone who has cut the baffle out, I'm not gonna be the guinea pig. I was looking for someone whose done that.
But if you look at other backyard offset smokers, there's not many with a baffle. In fact, Old Country is about the only one that directs heat downward, that I can think of. There might be others.
Yoder and Horizon have sort've a halfass baffle. And they use a " convection plate " to move the heat around, end to end.
LSG uses a baffle, but it directs heat upward and makes it a top down cooker.
I believe the Jambo backyard, does the same.
And if you search the archives of this site, you find discussions like this one from 2015
http://bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=213947
Where the solution to balancing temps end-to-end, is to open the FB door and use air flow to move the heat from the FB end to the stack end. Which would also create more convection.
But there's problems with that, one is having to constantly adjust the FB door opening as the fire ebbs and flows...... and bottom burning of meats.
And with the FB door closed, its a real balancing act to keep the smoke clean.