It was interesting listening to Chris Barnes on Xtra Frame last night talking about this.  He was commenting that the house shot tournament was allowing Smith and Rash to go 'all out' with their revs and ball speed for maximum carry, something which the patterns almost never allow them to do on normal tour conditions.  

He also commented on how every players rev rate seems to drop when they come out on tour, I beleive he called it becoming 'tourised' .  He said this was because with the higher rev rate it was more difficult to follow the transitions, and because of the violence of the ball reaction they were going to get badly punished when they throw a bad one or when they miss a transiton, and because of this it was very difficult to keep up with the best in the world.

From listening to the commentery on the TV show Randy is always talking about the power players learning to go straighter, this has been the case with Rash, Jones, Bill O'Niell, Angelo and Smith from memory.  It seems to me like learning to go straight at least some of the time is essential to being a factor week in week out on the tour.