It's a way of putting in a different spread of flow from the return pump, but as to goodbye powerheads? I don't think so. Not unless you want to increase your power usage by having all of your water flow against gravity, and then have to design a huge sump to take the large drop in the sump water level.
I'll stick to simple gentle returns and rely on energy efficient waveboxes and modern powerheads for my turnover. For comparison, I have an Eheim 1262 running the trickle filter on my 6x2x2 FW. This thing has a rated max of about 3,400 LPH for around 80W (and that is before losing power for head). A Tunze 6301 uses 64W to move 30,000 LPH.
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/www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2003/short.htm
