Hey great for you, again, not my experience but I think 30 years of keeping fish will suffice to have an experienced opinion. People incorrectly believing their fish will adapt to the size of their aquarium is significantly different than the believable aspect that fish could damage or wear down their barbels while digging through gravel, which regardless of the size of the gravel, they're going to try to dig into it. Most gravel is fairly rough around the edges. Additionally, I did 20-30% water changes weekly when that happened and my water chemistry is always well maintained. Corys would not be digging through coarse gravel in nature, where their natural substrate would consist of sand, detritus and vegetation.