I agree with the tuning bit, but I don't want to have to hit a rimshot on every single backbeat. There's nowhere left to go dynamically but down if that's the only way you play.
Big disagree on the "rimshots mean loud" thing. I use rimshots on nearly every backbeat in nearly every song, even the soft ones, solely because of the tone that it lends. I'll go as far as to say that I don't like the tone of a backbeat without some rim in there, it gets the shell all involved and makes my backbeat, at whatever dynamic level, sound sweet. JMO. I use non rim hits for ghosts, diddles, rolls and taps. Backbeats almost always get rim.
People tell me all the time they love my snare tone, but its the way I hit it that they love. Of course I don't say that, but I know it to be true. Other guys use my snare and most of them can't get it to pop, because of the way they hit it. They'll play (bad) trad where their hands are like a foot above the head and the stick is coming in on a 45 degree angle. And denting my heads with the point of the tip. Or bad matched where their hands are just too high and they just don't get the best (using the rim) from the drum. The drum sounds wimpified like that. It doesn't sound nearly as good as it could.
Angle of attack is everything. The bottom of my hand is about the same height as the top of my snare drum rim, and the stick tip is coming down at 90 degrees. It really gives the rimshot a nice thwap like that. (talking higher dynamic level there) And not just any rimshot... I like how it sounds when the stick tip is about 8" in from the rim, a little past center of the head, so that the thick portion of the stick, right in the middle of it, hits the rim. (on a 14" drum) The pop is very sonically balanced with a good amount of low (from the thick part of the stick) mixed in with the crack in there. And it will pop at any volume. It just sounds better when it pops as opposed to a straight "nothing but head" hit. So I'm rimshotting all night long. Yea!
To quote Jules (PFOG)
It's the Indian... not the arrow.
The guys who sound best to me can rimshot gentle enough so normal conversation is louder, at the low end, and "take your head off" or "melt your face" at the higher end.