france traditionally always rejected carbon.
it's not a coincidence that the players you mention lebesson and gauzy are both from france.
how far in europe this trend is followed I'm not sure.
but in the area I've seen high level players with persson powerplay, samsonov alpha, waldner senso v1, rossi emotion, waldner senso carbon....
and they never change the blade.
chinese/hong kong high level players I've seen mostly use viscaria.
so it all comes down to where the player comes from which indicates what the coaches told them to do when they were starting.
Ok so you're wrong sir: all the women's in the national team are using carbon blades, Apolonia for Pavade and Chasselin, TB Spirit and more recently Viscaria Golden for Jia Nan Yuan. The Lebrun Borthers are using a TB ALC (Alexis) and a CS PH Innerforce ZLC (Felix).
It's not that the french system rejects carbon: the french federal coach graduating system focuses on teaching proper technique and skills way before power. Is it a mistake ? well the chinese system certainly proves power matters too, but they also uses "sticky bricks" they have to boost as the Hurricane 3. The vast majority of european players are using ESN/Japanese dynamic rubbers because of that old speed glue trend that never dies in player's mind.
Just remember: when it was a cell ball, only 38mm, and speed glue, everyone played all wood blade. Butterfly introduced carbon in blades with the Tamca 5000 in... 1978 though ! but still, as the speed glue and 2.0mm sponges were doing enough with the cell ball, what was the use ?
The carbon thing became a trend only when the ball came to 40mm, and at the same time the speed glue ban was announced, so of course you could see younger guys like Timo Boll using a Viscaria at that time. It was 2 restrictions against speed. What happened ?
Butterfly Tenergy 05. Baaaaam... the speed glue effect was back. Even the chinese loved it for their ... not so powerfull backhand technique (compared to Primorac or Kreanga ridiculously powerfull strokes at that time !!!)
But then the ITTF decided to switch to the heavier and slower P Ball, ok.. back to carbon, the China women's team left her Clippers for carbon blades, ok...
But what happens now since 2 to 3 years ? new hybrid hard and dynamic ESN/japanese rubbers!!! and they all use it: the D09C, the Rakza Z, and if not it's regular grippy tensor rubbers that are über hard and dynamic ! and now available in 2.3mm for nearly all of them.
ESN and Butterfly have filled the technological gap now, we're so back in the speed glue effect trend that some of you people are trying to level down the speed of their rubbers because of their carbon blades !!! it's nonsense, I mean hinoki thick blades have always proved to be efficient for spips guys right ?
Equipment isn't priority ? well it does matter in that case, specially for the control/speed/dwell time ratio ! I would rather say "higher speed level of equipment" isn't priority.
Youngster's like Truls, Tomokazu, Alexis or Felix were literally born with a racket in their hands, starting TT at 3 for some of them ! It's totally normal for them to be confident with carbon products since they:
1- have the feeling of wood vibrations and reactions since a very young age
2-- they have trained A LOT to master the basics: control, control, and control
And yes as Tony said, it's not about the ridiculous loop kill you'll be able able to do once in a while that matters. Thierry Henry once said the best freekick shooter of all time in football was Juninho, not because of the angles, the speed, or the effect used... Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Messi were already scoring insane free kicks at that same time. But they were most of the time throwing the ball in the stadium seats !
The fact is: Juninho was efficient and dangerous because: 90% of the time the ball he was shoting on freekicks was on target, and 85 % of the time, it was a goal scored. The guy had perfect control of the ball. Sure it wasn't always beautifull, but it was... IN.
Statistics, percentage, they matters way more than the once in a while loop kill you'll be able to do whitout even being able to understand and analyse WHY you've been able to do it THAT time and not that one you've miserably missed 5 balls before !
I had a RC2200 in my club forcing me once to loop the 3rd ball with my FH no matter where it was against strong backspins, I told him "It's not my game, I'm not efficient enough for that". He was tired of seeing me pushing the ball with my FH as I was able to do excellent FH loops sometimes... "sometimes"...
I've done 3 decent FH attack over 10 of his receives, that's what all I was able to do.
Then he said "ok serve like you want to be able to attack the 3rd ball, no matter FH or BH", and then he understood why I was serving MY way, and moving my way: I did 100% more ! yeah only 6 over 10 still.
Then he told me: do yourself a favor and get a non carbon blade please. I was stunned. I saw his one and it was and old Tibhar Chila OFF: "I don't care if the ball speeds that much! as long as I can grab it and throw it on the table once more than my opponent with the right speed spin and placement, job done !" old player in his 60 by the way.
When you see these guys warming-up, it's insane: they always do the 3 mn time trial drive test first between 2 tables, the goal is at least to achieve 200 strokes for a non stop rally ! 100 successfull drives for each opponent !!! as long as they've not done 100 successfull simple FH + BH drives in less than 3 mn per drive exercise, they won't swicth to another one. That's something I'm able to do once in a while, only with all wood blades.
And then it's the same with looping against blocks, push vs push, counterloop vs counterloop is too much difficult though the best I've seen for guys at that level is 20 strokes each in the same non stop rally, and not playing too fast first.
It's all about control: controlling the ball, controlling your nerves. Multiball is certainly good for footwork, but just set a simple drives or pushes exercise with a friend with only 1 ball and a timer... you'll get the picture...