Don’t know about the pros, but at the amateur levels from about 4.0 to 5.0, men of a certain age always talk about how much easier it is on their bodies to play S&V, and how they can win points more easily, and that they should do it more often. So then I ask, why don’t you?.. And they usually say, I don’t know. And kind of shrug.
I have two theories.
One is that after Agassi and Nadal, most folks figured that a winning strategy is baseline play, so they got used to it — starting from a young age. For the pros, a lot of junior tournament play reinforces that, when getting lobbed is common, feels crappy, and the crappy feelings from being lobbed or passed outweigh disproportionately the good feelings from putting away volleys or overheads. Some studies suggest a strong bias to loss aversion, by as much as 6:1, so the number of positive experiences from S&V would have to outweigh the negative ones by a large margin... more than, say, 70% of points won. But 70% of points won would almost certainly translate into a won match! So, what kid has the patience to get lobbed several points in a row and go several games or a whole set to see that outcome? Besides, getting good at volleying may we’ll take longer than getting good at groundstrokes... So you end up with nobody practicing it, nobody getting good at it, and nobody winning with it. It’s a spiral.
Another theory is a bit more transcendental... Let’s just leave it at that.