Frippertron : if your focus on this dialogue is multiball, I think you've already nailed it: being willing to play in more control in multiball (consistency), and understanding risk vs reward. When I first got into competitive pinball in 2011, it had never crossed my mind to cradle a ball during multiball (or dead bounce, or post pass, or tap pass, or or or...), and I didn't think I needed to do so, because I could put up big scores already. But when you get in a tourney situation where you MUST execute well on THAT multiball of the ONE game you're playing where it's not your 5th consecutive solo game on the pin, consistency is crucial and on-the-fly multiball play won't consistently deliver the performance and score that you need to win. When you're at home or on location playing casually, and you triple-drain out of multiball and have a bad game, you can just press the start button again, or drop some more $ in to try again. No harm done other than your time and perhaps $1. My first TPF tourney experience taught me a lot about this as I lost to the likes of Trent and Donavan

So I made it a point to learn how to play multiball under control -- and I SUCKED! Bad. Really BAD. I don't recall how many weeks/months it took to make the change, but it was not a fun experience. Further, playing cradle/control multiball effectively is much easier said/watched than done. Once you've watched someone else execute techniques, then you've got to put in the time to practice them. Patience is a big component of this style of play.