What's the purpose of a short sponge?
A lot of recipes for rich or sweet doughs will call for poolish-like sponges that ferment for only 30-60 minutes or so before being added to the dough. I absolutely cannot figure out what benefit this would bring over simply punching down the dough after the first bulk rise and letting it to rise twice (or bulk rising in the fridge). I can't imagine that such a short amount of time would allow for much enzyme activity in the sponge, or at least nothing that a longer rise couldn't accomplish. According to some books and online sources, the sponge supposedly "increases acidity in the final dough", I guess like a sourdough starter, but that makes even less sense to me; don't yeast perform alcoholic fermentation and not lactic/acetic acid fermentation? To be honest, I find indirect commerically-yeasted doughs to be very annoying and would prefer to just extend the bulk/proof over dealing with a sponge.