In my own case, I suspect I took to free verse because subconsciously I thought it would be easier.  Yet I saw that Whitman wrote it, beautifully.  Whatever the reason, it seems poets today are not as interested in tempo, rhythm, punctuation, caesura, sound, line placement, rhyme or half-rhyme, form, punctuation/assonance/consonance, and other technical matters which have weight. I confess I often forget them.  There are free verse poets and then there are free verse poets: some good, some bad, many in-between, just as in fixed form verse writing.  Perhaps many of us are too quick to rush to computer print; I'm afraid I am.  Thanks for the topic.