It definitely works as a restrainer with phenidone-based developers. I can't say for sure it works with just phenidone by itself. But in the presence of either hydroquinone or ascorbic acid, it has a noticeable restraining effect. It appears that Haist was saying it was less effective than BTZ rather than that it was ineffective entirely. If you put 0.5g of bromide in any phenidone developer that I have messed with you will see the difference, even without a densitometer.