Toner...Expensive Water?

A certain prestige brand (which I respect fot the most part so shall remain nameless her) teaches it's new consultants that toner is nothing more than expensive water.  Not true.  A toner does two things for your skin.  The first is to remove that last layer of grime that your facial wash doesn't always get to.  The cleaner your skin is, the clear is stays.  The second thing it does is really toners function and that is that it closes up your pores and rebalances your skin's ph level...getting it ready to accept what treatment you are next going to apply to it.  Soap and cleansers change the ph balance of your skin so when you use them you need to get the ph level back to normal or your next steps are for naught.  You can do this one of 2 ways...wait 2 hours for skin to do it on it's own (I do not know about you but I do not have that kind of time) or you can pick the easy way and swipe some toner on your face.  You do not need to worry about getting an expensive toner...good ole witch hazel is one of the best.  But so long as it is a toner....it will do the job.  Hope this clears up some confusion or mystery.