Winner breaks and bar rules pool where you have to call every little rail and ball contact both and can't play safe and all the other bar rule nonsense both started the same way. "Well I won the last game so I should get to break again." "Well a really good player should be able to call every contact and go for every shot." They both sound macho and seem to make sense on the surface when you don't give them much thought, which is how they were able to catch on, but when you examine them with some logic beyond how they sound at first impression you end up seeing that they don't actually make great sense and that another way is better. The guy that loves and is incredibly used to and stuck on winner breaks pool is often going to be about as easy to convince as the guy that loves and is used to and stuck on bar rules pool though, and for the same reasons.9 ball, always has been and meant to be winner breaks.
You are also going to have to forgive me for not accepting “because that’s the way it’s always been” as a good reason for something. In fact it is a rather stupid reason that always stifles advancement and improvement no matter what it is you are talking about. Only the ignorant or the lazy adopt an “because that’s the way it’s always been” reasoning over an open minded critical examination using logical reasoning.
I get wanting to respect tradition but on the flip side I don’t think that being unwilling to make improvements in the name of “that’s just the way it has always been” is respecting the game either. A change that would allow for more accurate results in competitions, a higher percentage of exciting matches, and still keeps the packages is one that shouldn’t be dismissed simply because “that isn’t how it was done before”.Have to respect the game first before we can enjoy it.
And whether winner breaks is even tradition any more would be debatable although it certainly used to be. It is still the most used format but it's use is declining, and alternate breaks has gotten pretty common these days both locally and nationally and with that in mind I’m not so sure winner breaks even rises to the level of tradition any more, not that tradition is a good reason for doing things that don't make the best sense anyway.