As long as a stick is in a reasonable range it is much more Indian than stick. I gambled off the wall, usually with a very crooked stick. Crooked shafts protected tips. However, I played with straight sticks and good tips at home. Some sticks are both easy to play with and shoot better. Some are a pain in the ass to shoot with and shoot better. I was introduced to low deflection long before it was cool. 60" twelve ounce snooker cue plus it was an 11mm tip.
I knew there would be a learning curve after my first table length(bar table) heavy spin shot! I missed by several inches, the object ball that is. I was doing other things and it took me months of restricted playing time before I persuaded that stick to straighten up and fly right. It was like I had to do all of the work with a stick that light.
However, this was the stick I achieved an absolutely sick level of cue ball control with. Spot shape within an inch on the vast majority of shots. Spot shape made perfect shape on the next shot easier so it was a continuing cycle. A surprise I didn't expect, after six months or so I was able to get spot shape with cues I picked up off of the wall. In many years of play I hadn't been able to get that level of play with other house cues. I would have liked to carry that 12oz cue around but I didn't have a snake coffin to carry it in. Everyone would have definitely noticed the snake coffin anyway.
As long as the cue isn't ridiculously bad, I would say, 90% Indian, 10% arrow. The worse a stick is, the more important it is.
I remembered that it was Matt but couldn't remember kool kat 9. Yep and it was NC.. thank you sir.
I used to travel so much and played with so many people it all gets conflated from time to time...
Matt's full handle was KoolKat9Lives. Both he and Pinklady seemed like real good people, can't say where the shoe pinches somebody else's foot though.
Hu