another thing, I could never understand the concept of honor when playing fighting games, it always sounded like some over-exaggerated excuse like "low tier pride", need to stop playing for honor and start playing to win
I never understood why a pro uses tiers that are broken or dirty things like infinites to win. It's not about honor, it's about being a good player or not.
...and good players can win with any characters, including the not so commonly used ones. Scrubs, for a better lack of a term, can only win with characters that have more options available to them than any other characters (e.g, top tiers).
Like I said before, there's a difference between low tier revolutions or whatever you want to call it, and just self-restraint. I suppose since at AI at least, it's a small group of friends (12-15 Max) that play together so it is what it is. I guess if you're in Asia and you don't know the opponent, then the everything-goe mentality is easier to sleep at night.
Case and point. One of the regulars here recently mastered Mature's infinite--you don't know how quickly unpopular he is now among his closest friends. Whereas, Reynald, who destroys the competition with his Yuri and Vice is still very much respected still.
I guess it's very subjective, but that's how I personally see it over here--I don't speak for everyone though.