Question
Ken:

I use Turfbuilder, but realize now it is not a true slow-release fertilizer.  It also may not have some of the micro-organisms of "organic" fertiizers.  Is some other fertilizer better to help get rid of my thatch?  

(By the way, I believe that some time ago you wrote to someone that liquid aerators and dethatchers had no value.)  

Answer
Fertilizers don't kill thatch .. people kill thatch
(my apologizes to the N.R.A)

The choice of fertilizers does not directly have any baring on thatch development, although very high levels of nitrogen in early spring can aggrevate the problem.

Organic fertilizers do not contain micobes (most such fertilzers are dry). Soil contain microbes which have the ability to expand it volume (population size) once enough food supply is available. Once food supply is exhausted, the colony "die back" temporarily. This is a normal, natural process which takes place all the time.

The Mircobes consume the fertilizers which will release the nutrients for the plants to take up. Inorganic fertilizers (synthetic fertilizers) release nutrients as soon as they are dissolved in water, although some synthetic product like Urea also require microbacterial action. Urea as found in synthetic fertilizers have much simpler and weaker molecular structures compared to most organic fertilizer materials. Therefore, urea is released faster.

In theory, if you spread a layer of organic matter over the lawn, the microbe population which develop it will also be there to eat the thatch. This is atleast the theory although it seldom work as nicely as portrait in text books.

All in all, you can NOT fight thatch with choice of fertilizer. You fight thatch by dethatching and correcting lawn care procedures.

I do not recommend the so-called "liquid aerators". IMHO it is false advertisement.