both were slightly below average players. hogsun was famous for his "flower tower" at 2 o clock, and pretty much had a cannon tower at any other starting location whether he needed it or not.
i havent seen either one online in years ... hogsun disappeared first, fingaz next.
Spb does the same flower tower at 2, if he was willingly to adapt the same build as hogsun it couldn't have been that bad?
im not going to say the flower tower does SPB more harm than good, but the resources he spends on it/location he puts it could be better spent elsewhere. Also, SPB doesn't normally actually build the tower/upgrade it unless he feels like he needs it, where hogsun would auto-build/upgrade the tower without even knowing if it was necessary.
Towers for defence are a beautiful thing.. but it's important to not only know if/when to build them, but also if/when to upgrade them...
1 cannon tower 550g/200w to build ... 1000g/300w to upgrade to cannon.. that's 1550g/500w .. that's a huge setback when trying to beat your opponent to stronghold/mound/fort/altar/lust .. if you're going to build it, better know for sure you need it.
players style/strat plays a factor also.. spb typically likes to play extremely defensively, force enemy to waste resources (grunts, ogres, cats, offensive towers, and the farm space needed to create those units) with macro as his main focus (expand as much as possible) one of his strengths is peon production. so for him, it's not as devastating losing 10 gold peons at 2 o clock because he has 2 others town halls he is making peons from, and will continue making peons from 2 as soon as the threat is gone... a big part of the game is similar to chess, just trading units which have value and trying to accomplish it in a way where your enemy spends/loses more value than you in those exchanges. one of most player's potential weaknesses is that once they get to a certain point in the game, they focus less on peon production and more on offensive units. but like i said, spb always focuses on peon production. so if he loses 20-30 peons, but quickly replaces them, and manages to dk the enemies gold peons, and the enemy isnt as proficient at replacing those peons.. spb is ahead... but spb does not have a conventional style.