Defense will always be the key to qualify and succeed at tournaments like this, just look at the Strike Squad, Soca Warriors qualifying campaign under Beenie, and the Germany performance.
Pacho aint no defensive minded coach, look at his results with Colombia (5-0 beating of Arg. most notably).
The reason why you think we timid to attack is that the team is lacking that something special...Something that will give opposing teams nightmares. We are almost machine-like and very predictable, almost like a poor man's version of Germany.
We dont have the qualities of people like Nixon, Dwarika, Latapy et al anymore... So we look very ordinary. Its all down to the players available to him...
When I look at this T&T team now, I see them trying to play a similar style to Beenhakker, ie a compact unit, but with real attacking threats, its just that they are not at that level yet...far from it.