It's all true - you play fish according to the circs. But Mike's original post mentioned carp, and I've seen, by visit and from his posts, that he catches them on waters that are suited to the carp-playing style used almost universally on the matched carp commercials where anglers, whatever one thinks of that branch, do work out the most efficient methods of hooking and landing big fish.
Of course you wouldn't want to pull fish that are staying deep into snags, across rough ground etc, and I know bits of the Trent where you need to get a barbel up as a priority. But on a good bottom eg clean gravel, they come out easier with less chance of being broken when drawn in with a low rod.
Accepting that you sometimes have to get fish up in the water quickly, would people not agree that, just as some fish can be provoked/panicked to maximum resistance by playing them hard, thus making the job harder, some fish resist more when you try to try to pull them up in the water prematurely? Maybe it's just me, but that's my impression.