I think it is interesting to look at how different players earn their keep. At some limits you can employ a particular style and be very effective. Be that and aggressive/positional style relying on stealing, a style that relies on making excellent post flop decisions especially in shown down hands, a style that relies more on hand reading and trapping, etc, etc. As the collection of players gets better and better, you need to be able to employ tactics from all of the styles and not be such a one note charlie. The melding of these denotes real growth in a player, I think.
Ray Zee wrote a nice piece on the evolution of a player someplace on the site. Loosening up and tightening back down is one of the big leaps a player needs to make to achieve expert play.
http://www.twoplustwo.com/zee2.html
In internet time, I think you need (and get the chance) to move up and down these stages several times. For instance, I recognize several aspects of Ray's advanced player in my game while I am, by any measure, a decidedly intermediate player. I expect that I have several trips up and down the loose/tight ladder prior to achieving much beyond the intermediate level. Were I a live only player, I would probably only get one chance and would have quit the game some time ago.