Dealing with landscape fabric - cut holes or remove entirely?

Looking for some advice on how to manage/work around landscape fabric. The developer put down double-layered landscaping fabric in all the planter areas and put a thin layer of mulch on top of it.

I'm looking to build a cactus & succulent garden here, and want to know if I should just cut holes in the landscape fabric where I plan to put plants, or just clear out the whole planter?. I'm already planning on removing the mulch and putting in a few inches of decomposed granite as a top dressing either way.

Are there any cons of leaving the landscape fabric intact and just cutting holes for my plants? I'm leaning towards doing it this way - it's a lot easier to cut holes and I'd like to keep some separation between my top dressing and the subgrade soil underneath for aesthetics to prevent them from mixing, but I'm also concerned about permeability and letting the soil "breathe".

I've tested some of the landscape fabric and it is permeable to a degree; if you pour water on top, it does percolate through pretty quickly, so it's not watertight. But cacti hate sitting in wet soil. and I'm concerned about it not drying out fast enough and causing root rot.

Long story short, what do you recommend - cut holes or remove entirely?