I was watching a JEC match a while back when South had essentially the same hand as the OP; it may have been ♥KJT98etc. and two stiffs. Anyway, *both* sides with that hand elected to defend.
A while back I read that the hands may be farther afield than Europe, since one objective is to make it nearly 0% that anyone who played in the first event will also play in the second.
This also means that the bidding systems commonly in use may differ drastically ...
Well put, Ray. I believe you've pointed out another example of the fundamental attribution error -- assuming that a director denying a request to play up is lazy or stubborn, rather than using their professional judgment that granting the request would cause more problems than it's worth.
There's a thing in logic called the Fundamental Attribution Error, where you assume that anything someone did that you don't like or understand comes from some character flaw in them. (I think of it as "they're trying to be me and doing it wrong.")
In this thread ...
Top players already have to memorize a great deal of information regarding systems, distribution probabilities and so on. Adding vulnerability to the load does nobody any good.