I've noticed a similar, but less extreme strategy that a lot of polished speakers seem to use: they'll insert large gaps every now and then, but not in the plac

I've noticed a similar, but less extreme strategy that a lot of polished speakers seem to use: they'll insert large gaps every now and then, but not in the places you'd expect. Rather than doing it between two different ideas, or at a point where you'd expect them to need to pause for thought, they'll stop at a point where the next words are quite obvious. Then when they resume, they'll ride smoothly through those more natural break points. In conversation I think this is a way of holding the floor (it's harder to interrupt someone who is obviously in the middle of a thought or a sentence). When addressing an audience, perhaps it adds an air of authority -- it enables you to eliminate obvious pauses for thought, by substituting what feel like pauses for effect.