[Cry Me A River]

I think that a key concept that's missing in this discussion is multi-tabling.

Namely, bubble and ITM play very differently when you have reads and when you don't. In particular, when you can put your opponents on a range of pushing and calling hands and when you have an overall feel for the table texture, your best plays will often be very different from the mathematically assumed best plays. To take an extreme example, if you're in the SB and the BB has turtled and gone into "fold into the money" mode so he'll only call a steal with JJ-AA then you're stealing with everything and anything, all day. On the other hand, if you're SB and BB is a bigstack bully who'll call with any 2, you're only attacking with really solid holdings (unless you're in blind trouble and have no choice).

If you're multi-tabling you're a lot less likely to have reads so you're far more likely to go with "theoretically correct in the long run" plays. So you're likely to play both situations the same, which means you need a compromise strategy that works against most big stacks most of the time and doesn't automatically self-destruct against either extreme.

In addition, multi-tabling is by it's nature quantity over quality so squeezing maximum profit out of every individual tornament is not the primary objective, it's squeezing maximum profit out of every minute.

Personally, I rarely multi-table and my goal in each game is to hit the money every time. Obviously it doesn't always work out that way, but once you ARE in the money so much can happen so quickly... I don't know how many times I've hit ITM in third and wound up winning the thing AND how many times I've hit ITM in first and wound up third. Hell, I dunno how many times I've hit head's-up with a big lead/defict only to have the whole thing turn right around. You just wind up forced to take coin-flips or slight edges so often that anything can happen. Hopefully in the long run you're able to get the best of it, but in any individual tournament there's an awful lot that can go right or wrong.

ITM is a whole new ballgame. Anyone who's there has a chance at the big prize but 4th gets you $0 every time.