Hm, yeah, as I suspected, there's the difference between me and Khymerion: if I may refer back to ye olde Magic: the Addiction player typology, I'm Johnny with a side order of Timmy while he's clearly Spike. ;)
Nothing wrong with either preference (I can respect "competitive" players, I'm just not always in the mood to actually play with or against them), but it's the sort of divide that can readily doom a game from sheer assumption clash if it's not hashed out between players (GM included) beforehand.