Ip forwarding and weak host difference?

Question

Hi, this is a somewhat hypothetical question about 2008 R2, but here goes... in situations where the NIC that can route the reply packet isn't the one that the packet arrived on, we know that the packet is dropped. Reading posts and blogs, I see that ip
forwarding is suggested. That makes sense. I also see weak host suggested. That also makes sense. Some posts rather breezily suggest either as if they're the same (which they're not)! This http://workinghardinit.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/reflections-on-getting-windows-network-load-balancing-to-work-part-2/ intriguingly
says that using weak hosts is "more atomic" but doesn't explain further. That got me thinking: in situations where either will work, which is best? Is there a best practice? Or, is one more scalable, future proofed, granular etc? 

Answer 1

"If you enable the forwarding only, then the mode can possibly be the weak host mode but not the strong host mode.
But if you enable the weak host mode only, then the mode can possibly be the weak host mode but not the strong host mode."
They say the same thing - so does this mean that forwarding and weak host are actually the same? (I suspect that there
is a typo there!)
"Besides, "weak host mode" is the concept to "IP layer" while the "forwarding" is the concept to A"router".
I get that weak host is an IP concept and forwarding is all about routing, but that really only explains it conceptually (as in "one is
to do with routing but the other is to do with IP"). What I'm trying to get to the bottom of is: what
in practice is the difference? 
I'm OK if someone says "actually there's no difference at all - two commands written by two different developers that were intended to be different but turned out to do exactly the same thing in practice". ;)