Tuning styles with octaves

[Bec and John]

Hello,

I am curious about people who do not tune octaves "perfectly". For 
instance, tuning bass notes flat or sharp in smaller pianos in favour 
of better partials.

My own taste and philosophy is to tune all octaves completely 
beat-less. Even in the bass of small grands, if the note is off-tune in 
favour of a potentially less offending partial that will bother me far 
more than the partial. In the highest range, beats appear with the 
smallest of imperfections and, to me, perfectly clean higher notes (at 
least on a nice piano) are so pretty - even a very slow beat ruins it 
for me.

So I was curious to hear people's explanations for stretching octaves. 
I always figured it was to humour the person they are tuning for, 
although I have gathered from postings on the list that some tuners 
prefer it themselves.

When I was studying tuning I recall reading or hearing someone say that 
if the octaves were tuned "perfectly" they'd be off tune at either end 
of the piano - I found exactly the opposite! :)

Thanks.

- John