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Marc S.PSA caters to the modern [read: post-war] crowd because they generally charge the lowest prices and have driven the price of grading down over the past 5 years. They have done this by reducing service to the consumer - e.g. no longer do two graders look at a card before it is encapsulated.
In driving down prices for grading, they had to cut costs significantly - and most of the senior graders at PSA flew the coop, so to speak. There are few, if any, truly knowledgeable graders at PSA these days. Certainly not like the list of names I can name from a few years ago.
Also - PSA does not spend as much time researching issues. The pre-war market is a very subtle one. Alterations are rampant for a variety of reasons [many of them dating back to pre-1990s...], and some issues need to be carefully researched. As it specifically relates to pre-war issues, PSA often does not spend the time researching issues as other graders [like SGC] does. There are also enough allegations about some high-grade pre-war PSA cards that there is certainly a bell for concern. I know I have at least a handful of scans of important pre-war vintage PSA-graded cards that appear to be altered.
Just like almost any other market, Will - there are niches for the different players. PSA, more than anything else, caters to the PSA Set Registry crowd, which encompasses primarily post-war collectors and super-duper high grade pre-war collectors. Beckett caters to the modern crowd, finding a miniscule scratch somewhere on a refracting, game-used autographed parallel card and calling it NM. SGC's niche is pre-war. They do it exceptionally well - much better than PSA, GAI and any of the other third-tier players.
The majority of my graded cards tend to be in PSA holders - but I must admit that any of my pre-war submissions are not to PSA...