Also remember the difference between a free-flighted budgie or tiel, and a free-flighted ekkie, grey, or macaw. A super-aggressive budgie or tiel is much easier to deal with without clipping. . . .but sometimes it's in the best interest of all involved if a larger, temporarily aggressive bird, decides it needs to kill everything to prove it is the master of the home.
We clip as a last resort, and we even clipped several of our rescues who were endangering other parrots - we had so many in our home that having separate out of cage time was pretty impossible. But a clipped aggressor on his own playstand was safer than a flighted bad guy. . . and by the time the clip grew out, the behavior problem had been dealt with. We only had to clip one guy on more than one occassion.
On the other hand, my Scarlett is a clumsy flyer. She still, after 11 years, cannot figure out how big her wingspan is. I'm worried lately that I may have to clip her again because she's been hitting the edge of her wing on the wall to the hallway--which of course causes her to spiral out of control!! We're working on it, though. We still have a few weeks before the rest of the flight feathers she previously barbered are all molted out and regrown, so hopefully they'll give her a little more balance
