I suspect that the honesty/subtlety of the approaches really only is differentiable at the low levels which most people are able to master. If you can't do that you can't play, of course, but being able to do that doesn't really differentiate you.

At the higher levels, I suspect LA involves just as much dishonesty as Portland, and as much subtlety to make those lies work in an environment where brazen-ness is the norm.