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I've been in both kinds of dojos, and also go with the 'when in Rome' philosophy. My own (probably wrong) theory is that since the Iwama-style dojos do not use tsuba, they probably were not used by O Sensei in Iwama, where I think we'll all agree the main Aikido weapons traditions come from...one guess would be those now cheap and easily available rubber and plastic habaki and tsuba wouldn't have been quite so cheap and available in post-war Japan. Another would be they seem today more to be used for Iaido-like adaptations in some schools (eg, hold and release from an imaginary saya) than necessarily needed to illustrate the sword technique within the empty handed technique.I guess a point in that would either be the focus and dicipline that teaches, or the particular instructor likes Iaido. I think you can mimic the action one person mentioned, the locking of tsubas in trying to gain an advantage, without the tsuba if partners have an increased sensitivity to each others pressure and movement, which is not a bad thing to develop. But then, I have enough trouble in weapons class as it is...I just go with what the instructor prefers.
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