Thank you

Even on the ground you can notice the front tires are compressed more than those in the rear. This is especially noticeable in a pick-up truck with a light bed in the rear and heavy engine in the front.

If you rotated the tires would you expect the pressure to change?

While most people follow the manufacturer's suggested PSI, what they don't know is that a tire's max load rating, speed rating, temperature rating and just about every other rating is not valid unless you inflate a tire to its cold PSI rating. The manuals for most performance/luxury cars, mention that when doing high speed/performance driving to add around 5psi to their listed PSI. For two different cars but with the same tires, it's common to see two very different PSI ratings.

It just goes to show how subjective the PSI ratings are for tires, that following the tire's sidewall pressure and not the car manufacturer's recommendation is not going to result in a blow out by any means. This isn't to say that the car manufacturer came up with PSI recommendations out of thin air. The manufacturer's recommendations are based upon knowing the vehicle's load capacity, its purpose (luxury, sports, family wagon or pickup truck), top speed, and a few others.

Basically if you're willing to put far larger rims with small sidewalls on a car that didn't come with them, then inflating to the max sidewall pressure is no different. Another way to think of it is like this: Your car came with 44psi tires with medium sized sidewall and 17" rims, door jam suggests 36psi in front 34 in rear, and now your rims are stolen. All you have is enough money for some cheap 15" steel rims with large sidewalls. These tires have the same ratings as your old tires yet the sidewall indicates a max cold pressure of 35psi.

Are you still going to follow the manufacturer's recommendation of 36 psi in the front and 34 psi in the rear?

It makes absolutely no sense to continue to follow the car manufacturer's suggested PSI rating on a car that was made 15 years ago, yet somehow everyone continues to suggest to do so. The same goes for those who continue to abide by the door jam PSI yet put a completely different tire and rim combination.

Tires made today are far stronger than those made 10 years ago and a world apart from those made in the 70s/early 80s. The people who've been "in the automotive field for 30 years" may have a lot experience but are also still following guidelines for tires that are far different than those made today. Rules change but stubborn habits do not and following the car manufacturer's recommendation for the sake of it is a stubborn habit that needs to go the way side.

Pros to inflating to sidewall:
Better handling-
Improved Steering Response
More Road Feedback
Much Better Fuel economy-
Much Longer Coasting
Less friction so less throttle which means less fuel
Speed, Load, Temp, etc. Ratings are now Valid
Which means the tire is less likely to blow out
Tires are less likely to hydroplane
Sometimes braking distance is decreased
Better grip in Snow/Mud if the soft part is Shallow
In the event you hit the curb going fast, you're far less likely to damage your rims than had they been inflated to manufacturer's recommendations.

Cons to inflating to sidewall:
More Road noise
Can feel potholes and bumps far more
Suspension is theoretically more susceptible to being damaged due to rough road conditions though it does depend on the vehicle; For example if the car came with (designed for) using large rims and tires with small sidewalls then inflating to sidewall PSI will have much less of an impact than a car with large sidewalls
Worse traction in Snow/Mud if its deep (deep enough to have the tires sink in, therefore letting the chassis lay on the ground.
Sometimes the braking distance is increased

So it's your decision as to whether or not you want to inflate to your tire's Max Cold Sidewall pressure. Just remember that if you inflate to the sidewall pressure when it's cold and during the day it gets hot, exceeding the Max Cold tire pressure, you should NOT deflate the tire as this is part of its design hence the name "Max COLD". Not all sidewalls on tires are imprinted with Max Cold but instead with something along the lines "max pressure", these are one in the same.

Here is a factoid in case you're worried about your tire bursting from inflating it slightly above, near or slightly below the Max Cold tire pressure imprinted on your sidewall:

Auto manufacturers who ship their vehicles overseas routinely OVER-INFLATE their tires up to 80PSI (on a 44psi tire for example) in order to prevent the car from sitting on its rims by the time it arrives at its destination.