Honestly... Plushenko left a bad taste in my mouth the minute he made his "If you don't do a quad, it's not figure skating anymore, it's just dancing," comments, and then even more with his antics on the podium. He's an excellent skater, to be certain, but a sore loser, and it reminded me a LOT of Nancy Kerrigan's comments while waiting for the medal ceremony the year she came in second to Oksana Baiul. If I remember right, they were redoing Oksana's makeup, and Nancy stood there and groused that they shouldn't bother because "she was just going to cry it all off again anyway."

If the quad was a required element it'd be a different story, but it wasn't. I can't see throwing away a performance on a jump you could conceivably lose a lot of points on, either by falling or bobbling on the landing.