Theoretically you're correct that there will be times when you pass up a gamble in a tournament, expecting that you'll get an even better gamble later in the same tournament. Sklansky covers this in detail in
Tournament Poker for Advanced Players.
But note three key assumptions:
<ul type="square">[*]You're a better player than your opponents. If you're four-handed with Doyle, Jesus, and Harrington, you probably are happy to take a 50.001% shot, or even 49.999%, at doubling up. [*]The tournament must be long enough for your edge to play out with better gambles along the way. That's in part why if you're short-stacked, you're willing to take a gamble. [*]There's an opportunity cost because you couldn't be playing in an equally- or more-profitable side game or another tournament. If you crash out of the WSOP, you can't go play another $10K buyin tournament with the same amount of dead money starting five minutes later. But if you crash out of a $10+1 sit-and-go, you don't really mind because another one will start immediately with players equally bad.[/list]