Interesting that I just made a kind of similar response in
another thread.
I think it's a mistake to think that early play isn't important. Perhaps it's not important in achieving a satisfactory ROI...but there's a lot of EV to be gained, because I think most of your opponents play worse throughout the tourney than they do on the bubble. It's just a lot tougher to figure out how to exploit...but when you do, I bet your ROI would improve massively.
Sure wish I had a clue how to do that.