What kind of stuff are you getting out? What size? I am curious. I am well pleased using knee-highs. I think it matters what kind of stuff is around your pool. Grass is bad, leaves are bed, bugs are bad. My knee high catch little black ants. You would have to catch really fine stuff that be smaller than that. I hardly ever have any thing in the pump basket.
I think the size of knee-hight is important as well. If you use petite vs women's / plus size, that would be big difference, as more stretching is involved. Also, the skimmer basket size has a play in it. Obviously the bigger the basket, the more stretching. If you use small knee-hights on big basket, you definitely would see performance issues. I bbelievethat the skimmer socks are designed to not have to sstretchas much. I would be curious to see diameters of baskets posted with size of knee-highs of those who aren't seeing good results with knee-hights.
The consensus generally is that uusingsomething is better than uusingnothing.
If your pressure goes down significantly, something is definitely wrong, whatever you are using.