When I were a lad all of us (except the AD bunch) tried to go as low and as fast as possibly because that's what we thought would give us an extra few minutes against those pesky Soviets. Inevitably, even during peacetime where the FJs were limited to 250ft or 100ft in those special places, there would be the occasional aircraft/granite interaction. In fact, looking back I think that the majority of mates' funerals I attended were due to such events. But the bottom line was that we trained to fly low, always.
GW1 came along and we started to wise-up. For sure, there was a low level role and the Americans quite happily watched us race about the desert at 2ft 6 with a bit of a climb for the 233 canisters to be popped-off. However, we also learnt that muds could do a good a job with laser designation etc from medium altitude as long as the necessary OCA and SEAD was in place.
It's been quite a few years since I scared myself in an LFA but I suspect the playing field has changed and there is even less need to tool around trying to ascertain the gender of individual Welsh sheep. So, when pilots do have to go that low, I'm guessing that they are less at ease in the environment.