it seems to me that boiling the rock or starting with base rock, and then seeding it with live rock, would be the best bet. This is similar to seeding the sand bed with a handfull of sand from one or more established systems.
The questions are:
1) whether boiling actually removes phosphates and/or detrital remains of anything else that was killed in the boiling process
2) whether it is faster or more preferable to cook live rock or seed base/boiled rock (assuming strict adherence to each procedure to ensure success).
3) If you seed the rock, should you do this in the tank or while cooking?
for the first question, anecdotal evidence has been provided that it does and does not remove phosphates/nutrients from the rock. i call this undecided until i see data.
as for the second question, it seems to me that the strengths of cooking live rock are a more plentiful and varied bacterial population, as well as faster coralline recovery and survival of small crustaceans. downsides are the work and time involved. the strengths of seeding base/boiled rock are that you are starting with a very clean system and allowing the bacteria to grow INTO the bioload, rather than starve, die off, feed more, starve, die, repeat cycle, until equilibrium is reached. It may also be cheaper. Downsides include little or no coralline and little diversity in bacterial or other lifeforms (which some still consider a plus).
regarding the third question, if there is not enough food for bacteria to spread to the base rock (as in the low-nutrient cooking environment), then cooking will merely clean up the rock you are seeding with, but base rock will not become "live" rock until you put it in the tank and give the bacteria something to eat. I think that the die-off that will occur in the live rock while cooking should provide enough food for the bacteria to populate the base rock, but this is mere speculation.
here's a question of my own: if you cook live rock forever, i.e. keep swishing and maintaining nutrient-free water, will all the bacteria eventually starve and eat itself until there is nothing left, and you are back to nothing but base rock again? it seems probable if you take the theory behind rock cooking to its logical conclusion. we simply stop the process before this, after the rocks stop shedding, which is intended to be the point at which all the bound phosphates in the rock are used up.
interestingly, if you add fish or corals at this point, then you are again letting the bacterial population grow INTO the bioload of the tank, rather than die off and cycle repeatedly, which seems to be the old way to set up reef tanks.
PLEASE post any thoughts on this! i know a lot of these aren't new ideas, i'm just trying to tie a bunch of them together...
