What Tees to Play From?

At my course, it's recommended that players with a handicap 5 and under should play from the tips, from 6-14 the blue tees, 15-24 the whites, and above 24 the reds.

I ocassionally play with a couple of guys that play from the tips, yet I'm sure their hdcps are above 24.  In fact one of them I've never seen break 100.  Still, they insist on playing from the tips.  The reason, they hit the ball a looooong way off the tee. 

My question, what is more important in determining what tees to play from, distance off the tee, or handicap?

I use slope.  I shoot for something in the 120-130 range.  Sometimes I'll play a tee outside the range but it's seldom.  I play blues at my home club at 131 but I know it very, very well.  Played 119 this morning off the back tees at another course.  No tips at that course.  I don't like it much.  Can't get a good differential there.

I hardly pay any attention to length.  While I don't claim to hit the ball 320 every time I'm long enough that a 7100 yard course doesn't bother me.  If it's sloped at 125 I reckon I can handle it.

But then I'll three putt for bogey. 

I've always felt that the handicap-to-tee rule only worked well for the extremes, especially the high handicappers.  I've met any number of low-cappers who are short as hell off the tee and could NEVER survive playing even the blues, let alone blacks.

In the middle range, it's hard to say.  There are guys (like me) who are long enough that playing whites means not needing driver on any hole (unless perhaps driver + something can get home in two on a par-5).  Not a fan of that.  Not that I need the course or game to be harder than it is, and not that I shoot par from the whites.  Just that everyone likes "taking the test", and golf generally includes a driver or 3-wood off the bulk of the par-4s and par-5s.

For the most part, I follow Uisce's slope rule.

What I find is that, regardless of tee set, the typical player pounds driver off every non-par-3 tee.  So a guy who's mid- to high-handicap because he's wild off the tee will be wild despite moving up.  No time saved.

At least he won't be hitting 3-irons 40 yards wide of the greens, though.

Chicks dig the long ball.

No, but he'll still hit a 2d shot 3 wood from type of stupid yardage on every par 5, and top it 75 pct of the time...

I'm don't know if I tend to shoot roughly the same scores from different sets of tees as I usually stick with one at a any particular course.  However, if this is normally the case for a player keeping an index he should definitely pick one or the other depending on if he wants to lower his index or sandbag. 

Obviously doing the math in reverse yields partial scores that aren't possible but consider what it takes to record an 18.5 differential at Pebble Beach.

Blue

Yardage: 6,737
Rating: 73.8
Slope: 142
Score: 97.05

Gold

Yardage: 6,348
Rating: 72.3
Slope: 137
Score: 94.73

White

Yardage: 6,116
Rating: 71.2
Slope: 134
Score: 93.14

Looking at it another way, here's what a 94 gets you at the same course.

Blue

Yardage: 6,737
Rating: 73.8
Slope: 142
Differential: 16.1

Gold

Yardage: 6,348
Rating: 72.3
Slope: 137
Differential: 17.9

White

Yardage: 6,116
Rating: 71.2
Slope: 134
Differential: 19.2