OK, you stock finishers...How many of you remember Linspeed? If I remember correctly, it was a boiled linseed oil, and you also applied it by hand and hand-rubbed. That stuff took forever to dry!! You spent most of the time getting the pores filled and level. The final finish coats were particularly hard to get right, as it was extremely hard to det a dry coat without some dust getting stuck to the finish somewhere. Where I used the 0000 steel wool was on the final finishes, and only after it was as dry as could be expected. The use of the wool was extremely light pressured, only to lightly dull the previous coat. It often took me a month or more to get a good job.
I think the Tru-Oil of today has a dryer of some sort in it, which really speeds up the drying time, allowing more coats much quicker than the old stuff. As I said before, I'm not afraid of steel wool. You just have to know when and when not to be using it. One more reason I've kinda gone the polyurethane route more lately, although I do have Tru-Oil in the shop too.