Will Rogers said, "Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment." I know that I can personally vouch for the veracity of the above statement, and perhaps this applies to some of our experience with the use of additives.
We all know that additives impart critical properties to a coatings formulation, but we seldom focus on those properties and tend to forget the major role that additives play. Our attention is usually centered on the major compositional materials in a coating - the polymers, pigments and the solvent if formulating a liquid coating. We use additives to fine-tune formulas, to provide better application properties, and to correct for a problem that has arisen because of a prior improper use of another additive.