It’s a funny thing, I think most reloaders know the advantage of not running max +.5 and yet a whole bunch of them get caught up in it even while knowing better, myself included.
When I screw a new barrel on I tell myself “I’ll be happy with 2900 out of this barrel” and then 8 hours later after 30 rounds I’m thinking “Man, with XX powder I bet this baby will hit 3050!”
My usual technique is to start with a very achievable goal, exceed it by a lot, trash some brass, maybe pull some bullets just for fun, come to my senses and back way way down to my original goal and then happily shoot the barrel for the rest of its life at the happy load after killing 40% of the barrel life and ruining a couple hundo in brass for a few extra yards of minimum expansion velocity that I’m not gonna use anyway.
PS- This is an advanced technique I don’t recommend for anybody but the extremely simple minded like myself.