I soak them because I don't like the crunching nugz makes when he eats them dry
Also, and I don't know how much of this is fallacy, but I was told by an old boy that you have to treat like sugar beet because a stubbs scoop of dry nuts makes about 2 (depending on amount of water) stubbs scoop of wet so what you think is a 'small' feed can become a pretty large, heavy one.
I soak them as the take up a huge amount of water and swell up a lot so I can't really see how they are any different to sugar beet in that sence??
In fact they swell more than my sugar beet shreads, one 1/2 stubbs scoops willl fill a standard size water bucket once soaked so easily 3 to 4 times original volume. Where as the shreads only really double in size.