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My own theory is that the original Earth-box inventor (who lives in rainy Florida) put holes in this surface to drain off excess rainwater back in to the water reservoir - - NOT to somehow deliver Oxygen to the root system.
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I have been a fan of Earthboxes (real ones--I have eight) for many years. I have made a few homemade ones too.
I always tell people to splurge on at least one--you really get to know how they work and how to set them up. A lot of people going by the home-made sites don't get some of the basic principles.
The screen really isn't draining rainwater as you really will get very , very little to NO rainwater in the container if set up properly. It could pour rain for a week and my Earthboxes would be dry as a bone if I did not water them everyday.
You might get a tiny bit of rain water when you have very small plants but not very much. You must fill the earthbox so that it is mounded on top. The plastic mulch covers the whole top and drapes over the sides--so any rain water is shedding off the top not sitting on the plastic.
Water coming in from the top would be disasterous as you have 2 cups of fertilizer sitting there-- enough to burn the plant if it got overly wet and dissolved.
I used to have a scientific article written by the inventor
explaining the box but I could not find it. I did find a link explaining the patent a little bit but this is not as good as the article he wrote. (Check out paragraph 6.)
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?...4&DISPLAY=DESC
Good luck with your boxes.
EDIT I just looked more carefully at your pic with very few holes. I could be wrong but I think your soil will be waterlogged. You have a large 'wicking' basket constantly wicking water up into your mix--I think it will stay very wet--possibly too wet. To me it is as if you will have a big container with no drainage to speak of at all--remember the basket is constantly sitting in water. But experiments are always good--good luck.