Eclassic fire box brick replace or remove?

[stumper]

I had a passing conversation with a boiler man.  I grumbled about the fire brick in the in my E-classic.  He told me that plroperly installed the fire brick should come loose.  Basically he indicated that when attaching the brick you needed to cement around the edges of all the bricks to keep the creosote from getting behind or between the brick.

He made a logical point, that a bead of adhesive did not do that and over heat cycles would fail every time.

Now that I have an idea how to stop the brick failure the question I have is do I re-install them or not?

Pro's of re-installing -
1.  Protection of the steel from the corrosive effects of the fire.
2.  Allowes a hotter fire for more complete combustion.
3.  Other?

Con's
1.  Cost to re-install.
2.  Reduced heat transfer.
3.  Other?

What do you think?

[beenthere]

What is behind the steel that the firebrick "protects" ?  Water or air? 

[Hackberry]

Water

[beenthere]

Stumper
If water behind, then I'd not worry about a need for protecting the steel.
My wood boiler has been without brick, and going on 26 years. Creosote builds up on steel inside because the water cools it off, and it condenses. At a certain point, the fire temps will burn off the surface creosote, but never completely removes it.  So there is a certain thickness of creosote that remains. Never have I tried to clean it off.

As for Con #2, I don't see how the brick will allow a hotter fire, and I don't see any "Con's" for firebrick at all.

If there are some, I'd be interested in hearing what they might be..

I can understand using firebrick where protection from high temps of a fire would break down a different material...such as steel backed by air, or regular brick/concrete block, like in a fireplace. But steel backed by water is pretty safe.
The danger when using steel combustion chamber is rusting from the water side, and that can be controlled largely by de-gassing fresh water added to the system.