I can't believe I'm about to quote Bushwacker... he often says about bumps: "It's not that you can't ski bumps; it's that you can't ski and bumps prove it."
I feel the same way about tipping a wide ski: "It's not that you can't tip a wide ski; it's that you can't tip your feet and wide skis prove it."
Tipping a wide ski takes extra effort because the edge is further away from your foot. It also requires better balance for the same reason. The reason it is hard on the knees is because with the edge so far from your foot it creates a huge amount of torque on your knees because the resultant force vector during a turn no longer runs parallel with your leg [also the reason it is so hard to tip and balance].
Enough with the physics lesson. A strong skier can move between skinny and wide skis without skipping a beat [usually] as long as they are attentive to not get lazy with tipping [etc.]. A less skilled skier won't have a choice and will therefore revert to old habits in order to get the skis to turn. Many feel that this is no big deal; some even view it as one of the benefits of fat skis. I'm not here to debate that since you all know where my preferences on technique lie, and what I feel builds an overall stronger skier.
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