Running a tank with or without carbon is a person preference. Most people in this forum are on the no carbon until needed for removing medications side of the argument. i have ran tanks with and without carbon. The key to carbon is the quality. Without going into a big chemistry lesson, low quality carbon will require changing approximately every 3 days as the carbon will be "used up". higher quality carbon (ie the stuff in tap water filters) Will last longer, anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month, depending on if there is anything in your water. Carbon does help to eliminate odors, and in my opinion it does help to "polish" the water, give it that little extra sparkly effect. On the other side of the coin, those odors are often a pre-cursor to something going wrong in your tank. Here is a very good site that discusses the pros and cons with no bias. It also goes into detail on the quality of carbon if you chose to go that route.
http/www.ratemyfishtank.com/articles/106
I got that opinion from reading other posts and other articles online. Thanks for the link, I read that site article yesterday. Was very helpful...... I have put carbon back in but I don't think It is very good quality though.