Beau, morning and welcome to the forum..... Please stop in to "roll call" and introduce yourself so we can give you a proper welcome... knowing your location, smoking equipment and experience will greatly help our members answer your questions....
About your question.... From what I can determine, steam/moisture is used to speed up the cooking process when smoking meats.... Moisture laden air has more thermal mass than dry air... I do not use a water pan.... the old timers, I learned a bit of smoking techniques from, never had a water pan in their smoke houses.... I am sure it was developed for the "high output" commercial smokers.... There is a difference in taste, texture in meats smoked 50 yrs ago and today's production smoked meats in my humble opinion....
Yes you can use it without the water pan and probably with great success.... I'm glad to hear there is an "old world" meat smoker still out there..... Take some pics of your operation for all to see.... your operation is a dying art... Dave