“I hate teh problems of no-knocks, but I also hate the idea of asking decent men to give up an element of surprise and volunteer to be a target.”
As others have stated, there is just no need to do it this way. A couple of grams of cocaine, or a pound of pot is NOT a life and death emergency.
Much safer to arrest the suspect outside of the home and then search the home. If a few get away, too bad, there will be other chances to get them.
The no knock tactic gets people killed.
But that way they do not get to use their tacticool stuff or training (which our taxes paid for).