I truly think the taking the first thing has taken on a life of its own. A lot of people are so fixated on it now that it feels like it is happening more than it actually is.
As evidenced by the data above, we are not actually taking every first pitch and the opposing team really isn't humming in first pitch strikes at that great of a rate compared to the norm (which I assume is right around 50% or below at the college level). Of course, there will always be outliers (Friday, game 1 against Arkansas, etc)
I don't think the offensive approach has anything to do with Flores swinging at balls at his neck level or Gasparino chasing balls in the other batters box.
Probably not a coincidence that some of our most successful hitters approach-wise (Mendoza, Rodriguez, Williams) are all new to the program. This is the only approach they've known, whereas the guys from last year's team are trying to move off approaches that had them flying out to CF 3 times a game against 88 MPH fastballs from Baylor and A&M Corpus Christi.
No one seemed to have problems with this approach when we were running up pitch counts and scoring runs against LSU and Georgia and Auburn. Just have to get back to that middle ground between aggressive and passive. We had it figured out for a while.