[drizabone]

What is the general consensus on removing/leaving said shoots.

[Aunt Sally]

Leave the tillers.  Removing them can damage the plant and they contribute energy.

[Trillium]

I agree with Aunty. We never remove ours and we still get several lovely large main cobs along with the few smaller side shoot cobs per plant. You can never have enough sweetcorn.
Besides, if removing sideshoots were really worthwhile, imagine the headache commercial growers would have with fields of sweetcorn.