what gives?

[dj]

so my question is this: if it is pretty much universally acknowledged that blasting through a piece at full speed with lotsa pedal is almost never the best way to do things, y is it that so many young pianists do just that? i mean, if you listen to someone like rubinstein, it's clear that he gets an incredible tone quality by simply holding back a little and paying attention to details. so y is it that if we all know this, it tends to take pianists till they are old guys to show it in their playing?

[faulty_damper]

To show off!

I guess...?

Maybe it's the control that we don't have of ourselves.  I see some young pianists doing just what you said.  It seems to me that they just got into it a bit too much (can anyone get into it too much?  Think Beethoven and how flambouyant he was at conducting and at the piano.)  So when they get into it too much, they tend to focus on the ferocity of the piece and it just comes through as blasting off with full dampers and sometimes playing a part too fast in the process.

"it tends to take pianists till they are old guys to show it in their playing? "
Maturity.  That's what old pianists have over young ones.