1. Citation count is a poor estimate of the quality of the paper. It is often more about the novelty of the area or of the research problem. Most of the time, people cite papers because they need to present context on the problem they're working on. Only in a small fraction of the citations actually relate to solutions that are similar or inspirational to the citing paper.

So it's not the case that you can just say, I want to write papers with high citation counts. Your question would be more directly appropriate if you changed citation counts to "publishing at top tier/quality conferences." In that case, there is a real decision to be made, and authors can often choose to target top tier venues, but doing so incurs more time/energy and risk, so the tradeoff you mentioned makes sense.

2. So if you're asking why people publish more papers at lower tier places and don't focus their attention on a small number of top venues, here are some answers:

- Risk Faculty need to help their students succeed. And that means getting good papers out. If they wait and only submit to the 1 or 2 top venues in their field, then they're taking on a lot of risk for themselves and their students. Top venues are by definition selective. So there's a high probability of your papers getting rejected. If you limit yourself to the top places, then you have to wait 6 months or longer to submit again. This introduces risk that a) a paper may get scooped by someone else before you get it out, and b) your student will only have a small number of papers (or worse yet, ZERO papers) when they graduate.

This is often more of an issue for younger faculty, who need to establish their own reputation, by publishing good papers and graduating students with great publication records. Once faculty hit full professorship, they often take on more risk, because they no longer "need" to publish for themselves. Personally, I don't buy that argument, because I think the risk to students is the same.

- Quality of research Risk is really a function of the quality and type of research the faculty does. Top researchers can routinely get papers accepted at the most selective venues, so it's less of a gamble. Getting papers accepted is a combination of your research topic, your ability to find creative solutions and execute, and also your ability to present your work in the most attractive form to the reviewers. For many academics in developing countries outside of US/Western Europe, their ability to publish at top places may be limited in their understanding of what reviewers are looking for. So for them, it makes sense to perhaps target some lower tier places to get their papers out.

I agree with most of the ideas in this post, except with the recommendation at the end, which I will come back to. Forgive me, but it is not in publishing in "lousy" outlets that accept all kinds of rubbish that you are going to be promoted and cited. It is not in publishing for some fee that quality will come out. Academics cite what is worth citing (even if the citation is critical of the author). This leads me to the recommendation. If you manage to find a "niche" for yourself, i.e., an area of specialization about which you know enough, you will be cited. Reference to ourselves as developing counties is, at least partly, responsible for why you are not cited. Unless you as an academic share most of the scientific knowledge with the rest of the intellectual community you belong in, reviewers will impose their rules on you. But NOT WHEN YOU SEE BIG AND ACT ACCORDINGLY TO GO GLOBAL in research.