Though usually an advocate for thinking outside the box, I by no means dismiss the value of thinking inside the box, especially if the box contains a couple cases of Stella Artois or some glimmering bottles of Bushmills. The Persians, Herodotus tells us, reconsidered matters while sober after being drunk and also while drunk after being sober, within two different boxes we might say. Prudent people, those Persians.
Whether in a given situation it is better to think inside or outside the box is best answered, I dare say, on pragmatic grounds. Perhaps I only say this having just moved from one home to another. Some boxes work well for containing and carrying certain items and poorly for holding and moving others. Books, for example, are best shipped in smaller boxes. Filling a large Tupperware bin with hardback tomes guarantees not only torn muscles, but also severed friendships, or at least strong reluctance among friends to assist in any future moves. The mental boxes we use may likewise work well or poorly depending on the size, shape, and weight of the ideas we're thinking and the people to whom we convey our thoughts. It may also be worthwhile to think inside a particular box if more ideas can be contained within it or if the ideas already packed can be expanded or developed to fill the empty space.
Of course, few things are less wasteful than using a great, grand box to hold small, feather-weight items or ideas. It's not just the postmodernists who are incredulous towards space-wasting meta-boxes.
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