I've been researching this subject for a few days and the most comprehensive research I can find ('Ecology of the Planet Aquarium'-Diana Walstad) indicates that plants will greatly prefer ammonia as their N source over nitrates. Thus, plants could survive entirely without nitrates as long as they had ammonia.
So a 'perfect' chemical filter which removed ammonia and nitrites is back on the cards then? Well I guess not, because instead of the bacteria in the filter not having anything to eat (and of course not being needed), now the plants wouldn't; I don't think plants can survive without nitrogen, no matter how undemanding they are. (The plants would compete with the chemical filter for ammonia, and presumably lose.)
So, I suppose one could use the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate neutraliser, but then one would have to dose with a source of nitrogen for the plants. Some may consider this an acceptable trade-off.
But the more I research the benefits of plants (cheap, and theoretically eternal) a heavily-planted moderately-filtered low-tech aquarium is preferable to the 'perfect filter'. It's much (much) more cost effective, and natural.
(Edited to add: of course, one could always go for fully synthetic plants with the 'perfect filter', assuming they were sufficiently life-like. But this ignores the other benefits which live plants bring.)