Fast Maneuvering

I have heard great arguments on both sides of this issue, but I am mstill unsure as to where I stand in my own personal creed. When playing multitable tournaments such as freerolls, is it better to make big risky moves at the beginning and double, triple, or quadruple up early or try to hold out for the safer cards? I am often greatly annoyed when people go bottoms-up first hand into a tourney, but then again, I suppose going all-in and losing in a couple of minutes is better than spending 4 hours and getting nothing. That actually happened to me; I tried to play out hands and eventually wound up being short-stack toward the end. Backed into a corner, I tried maneuvering and couldn't find the light of day. I was only 9 places away from the money. Thoughts?

Maybe not really helpful... but: I compare my stack to the average stack size. If it's more than average I'll take less risks. If it falls (far) below, I'll start taking bigger risks. If it's far above average, LAG again. This simple strategy often gets me far (I usually end up in the money).

Edit: Useful to note, I switch from TAG to LAG alot.
With a shortstack I'll play very agressive (LAG in position, Between LAG and TAG OOP). Average stack I'm TAG. When I'm deep stacked I'll play LAG.

Please explain what some of those abbreviations mean...TAG? LAG?

Tight Agressive and Loose Agressive

Tight- Doesn't see a lot of flops. Only plays premium hands and folds the rest.

Loose- Sees more flops than a tight player. Plays more marginal hands.

Aggressive- Bets aggressively. This typically means that the player rarely calls. When faced with a call/raise/fold decision, they will typically raise or fold.

Passive- Doesn't control the pace of betting. When faced with a call/raise/fold decision, they will typically call or minimum raise.

TAG = Tight/Aggressive
LAG = Loose/Aggressive

There are other types of players as well.

Tight/Passive
Loose/Passive

This is only meant as a primer. Someone else could answer specific questions a whole lot better than I.

Thanks for the description, that was very helpful. I still have to do some experimenting and find out where I stand.