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I also think that sometimes there's a little too much "group think" here. When everyone was playing .50 - 1.00 full ring games, suggestions were floating around that simply weren't applicable to $1-$2 because the games are tighter both pre-flop and post flop.

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It annoys me a bit when people go on about groupthink in this context. No one ever said you have to limp hands like small PPs and Axs UTG. They said you should. Translated, that means you should be working to identify opportunities to play them. If you're not having much success and others seem to be, don't stop until you find out why. There are probably plenty of opportunities you're missing if you're routinely folding. I have a hard time believing that 1/2 is so tight/aggressive that you shouldn't be playing them at all.

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In order to get that VPIP up over 20% though, are most people still suggesting adding low Axs and small pairs when the games are loose or are there others?

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There are lots of others. Blind stealing/defence plays a huge role as tables tighten up and aggression increases. As does isolating and outplaying weak opponents with hands you might otherwise have to fold -- getting HU (especially with position) allows you to play a surprisingly wide range of hands against opponents who play far too loosely.

Each new concept you learn will affect your overall pf strategy. Constant improvement should be the goal, not chasing some arbitrary number. VPIP is another instance of our highly retarded friend with a perfect memory (PT) giving us quantitative data. He can't tell us whether we should be playing xx in xx position, just whether we did.

The basics are easy. Follow any reasonable chart. It's building a conceptual framework that's the tricky part. It involves blind play, position and relative position, adjusting to specific table characteristics, etc. It's a complicated set of interactions. You may be able to play more speculative hands in EP since your tables tend to be looser and more passive than mine. I, on the other hand, might be able to isolate much more often, and be forced to attack/defend blinds much more frequently than you. In other words, we may not be playing the same distribution of hands, but there's a decent chance that we won't be too far away in raw % if we're both reasonably skillful players.

My suggestion is that we should just focus on working on our games. Stats might be able to suggest areas to pay attention to (assuming they're relatively accurate), but unless something is seriously out of whack there's only so much they can tell us. And in any case, they're certainly no substitute for aggressive self evaluation.

This isn't necessarily directed at you. You seem to be taking a sensible approach. Consider it clarification of my previous post.