Not sure what your getting at here. You set the camera on a tripod, make your setting choices, use BBF to get focus, go sit down on the lawn chair, push the cable release and camera makes adjustment to exposure and takes the picture. Oh look, a bird is flying through the scene, everything is already set, including focus, so push the cable release and the camera sets exposure and takes the picture. Why do you want to refocus again on the same spot? The focus is already set. Now if your using manual mode then the camera does not even need to make any changes to exposure as you have already set that in stone so it merely takes the picture, which now does not waste time setting exposure or waste time finding focus, it just takes the picture reducing your already fast lag time. When shooting landscapes you will almost always be at or near infinity (unless you happen to be in a tight space rock canyon) so why would you need to refocus? The BBF only deals with focus (sets it and locks it till you change it), not exposure.

Again, if your view point changes to a different scene (see above, tight space rock canyon)... well you need to touch the camera to do that anyway which also would include setting the new focus point, unless it remains at infinity. As a rule, if the camera don't move then the focus don't move. (rules are made to be broken on occasion)

What am I missing in your scenario?

I use a cable release instead of a timed release so I can time elements in the shot.

For example, I shoot a lot up along the shore of L. Superior. A cable release allows me to time me shot for the perfect wave - can't do that with a 10 second timer.

Another use is for combating wind in a scene. You can lock up your mirror and just wait till it stops (or slows down) for a second and then snap the shutter before it starts again.

So, timer release works good sometimes, but there are times a cable release can be your best friend.

The two shots below are good examples of when using a cable release to catch the perfect wave paid off:

I've seen the light about BBF and I've been practicing regularly. I agree that it works great for hand holding the camera/moving subjects. A problem is that "everyone" seems to say to set the camera for BBF and leave it there!

My dilemma is...I take a lot of landscape photos using a tripod and cable release. It seems counterproductive to use BBF and then snap the shutter with the cable release. Obviously I'm TOUCHING the camera to do this. (The cable release cannot be set to use BBF). Should I be going back and forth between BBF and half-press depending upon what I'm shooting. I've not seen this discussed. Please comment

Obviously, BBF has its place, BUT not for everything. It is good for action shots, it is good to be able to control exactly what is in focus, or out of focus before tripping the shutter, but for some shots of course it becomes a distraction/hinderance.

One option is to use a IR remote which may focus before tripping the shutter, even when the camera is set for BBF - My Nikon D7100 set for BBF will activate focus, then trip the shutter when activate by using the IR remote.

The cable release will not change the focus, but the IR remote will cause the BBF setting to be ignored.

Nice photos! They look like HDR photos, which may have issues with motion in the scene because they take 3 or more exposures while the scene changes. I guess this could be responsible for the water effect, which looks similar to what happens when you use a slow shutter speed on moving water? Did you use multiple exposures with the waves in different positions? I did notice on one of my HDR's the moving clouds produced like after images which I think is called a ghosting effect or double image (and yet the moving water in the harbor in the same photo had very sharply focused ripples)), but with water moving fast enough so the each frame shows some of the "smoke" or blurring effect, which is then combined by Photomatix or whatever HDR software you use? I am confused too by what I just said, but I think you may understand what I am getting at. Unless it was all done from a single shot in the first place and not multiple exposures.

Thanks - nope, these are not shot as HDRs. I do manual blending in photoshop using layer masks and luminosity masks as needed. That way, I can pick and choose what parts of each image end up in the photo and what doesn't (no ghosting that way). In the rainbow image, it was just a single exposure double-processed in LR (one for highlights, the other for normal / shadow areas).

The sunset one was a two shot blend, one for the sky and one for the water / land.

The waves are pretty much a result of the shutter speed used - I don't think I blended for waves in the rainbow photo, but I believe I did a slight bit of blending in waves form two different shots in the sunset. If I recall, the main image had the nice break over the foreground but I think I blended in a wave from another shot (taken the same time / place of course) for the one of the background waves. But the foreground was all one image - it was just messy :)