Quote Originally Posted by waterbear View Post
The only real advantage to having a higher TA is when you are using stabilized chlorine which is acidic. The higher TA (which will eventually get depleted) will keep causing the pH to drift upward and help stabilize the pH. With bleach or any other unstabilized chlorine running a lower TA will minimize your acid usage needed to maintain pH.

Good point.

Edit: Carl is correct that there is no reason to worry about TA in a vinyl pool as long as your calcium levels are not too high.

Except that, as Aquarium notes, that high TA will put upward pressure on your pH (as you note above); that's good in your example but bad when you're fighting constantly rising pH.

You might need to add acid more freqently if you are using bleach but there really aren't any other negatives...
I guess you're saying the same thing in a subtler way here.
I have my TA down to 60 in my ongoing battle against constantly rising pH and I'm still adding acid every few days. I'd hate to think how bad it would be at 180 ppm.