I agree with your last paragraph completely, but I guess I wasn’t clear about the “total lift” and soreness bit. I didn’t mean a fixed amount of weight, I meant doing your maximum reps with a particular weight—the maximum number of times I can lift 70 pounds is a lot more than 5 times the number of times I can lift 350 pounds. In fact it is more than 10 times as much- 70 pounds by 50 reps (3500 pounds total) versus 350 pounds by 4 reps (1400 pounds total). And the former leaves a lot more aches than the latter.
I agree with your last paragraph completely, but I guess I wasn’t clear about the “total lift” and soreness bit. I didn’t mean a fixed amount of weight, I meant doing your maximum reps with a particular weight—the maximum number of times I can lift 70 pounds is a lot more than 5 times the number of times I can lift 350 pounds. In fact it is more than 10 times as much- 70 pounds by 50 reps (3500 pounds total) versus 350 pounds by 4 reps (1400 pounds total). And the former leaves a lot more aches than the latter.