Jeff - I think "Don't be an Idiot" captures all that.
I'm an average golfer at best, but usually I get it off the tee far enough to be left (on most par 4s) with an 8 iron or less. If I (or the guys I tend to play with) were idiots, we might say, "Hey, we're doing good - let's move back a set of tees, we can handle it". And for me at least, in one sense that would be good -- I like the challenge of hitting longer irons, I like trying to get better at that. But, since I try not to be an idiot, I never do move back -- and that's because I know and am truthful about my game, i.e. that the approach shots that just miss the putting surfaces with using 8 and 7 irons, usually resulting in a poor chip and at least two putts, would miss even more badly with 5 and 4 irons, and probably results in a bad pitch as well as a bad chip; and I know that, swinging harder off the tee (from the back tees) would result in more pulls and pushes and more punch outs and more missed greens, and that my scores and the time it takes me to play would go up exponentially. But at the same time, I don't play it forward, both because I tend to play quickly and I tend to stay right on the group in front of me, and because I don't have much interest in hitting 9s or PWs into greens all day -- I guess I might score better, but it feels like I wouldn't be getting any better as a golfer.