To Match Grip Or To Parade Grip?

When I was 15 I took 6 weeks of drum lessons with the great local percussion instructionist extraordinaire, Dick Demers. We focused on "Set Control" as I had a basic fundamental vocabulary. After observing me he commented, "I see you use the Matched Grip popularized by Ringo Starr. Did he influence this?" "No, I just find this grip suits my style of rim-shot based attack." "Interesting you should say that. I find the Parade Grip actually gives me more power and flexibility, making it very easy to switch gears from feathering to sharp rim-shot attack. Would you like to try this?" "Okay, it works for Charlie Watts who I prefer over Ringo, so I'll give it a try." This approach is a paradigm shift! I found that switching between Parade and Matched grips really opened things up, A LOT. I angled my snare around 2 degrees forward, positioned my hi-hats to be easily reached with the left hand, brought my ride as close as possible angled almost vertical. Dick always questioned the ride positioning but hey, it works for me! As I began playing out and the emphasis veered towards hard rock/progressive blues rock Ala Mountain, Jethro Tull, ELP, etc., I weighted my approach more to the Matched Grip (turns out the great Jethro Tull drummer, Clive Bunker did the same shift as they began playing larger stages). By the time I co-founded the band Someone & The Somebodies in '79 I was a confirmed Matched Grip slugger. My rim-shot accuracy had improved to over 90%. The upside was I sounded way more powerful than I was actually hitting the snare. The downside was I more consistently cracked my left index finger, sometimes severely enough to draw blood and bleed all over my snare. I became quite adept at keeping the beat while licking blood from my hand! After Someone & The Somebodies broke up in '85 I hung up the sticks and became more involved on keyboards in my experimental electronic band Dervish with Somebodies lead guitarist Rob Davis. When I was urged out of retirement in '90 to join the Goth Country band, Why Fatman, Why?, I toyed with the Matched/Parade switch-off approach but I wasn't ready for it so stuck with Matched to get up and running quickly. After another long hiatus, I've set the kit back up and am taking time to be as open as possible on this. Any of you drummers out there care to chime in?