I was attempting to make a funny. I could infer from his personality that Mike was probably a grocery store ground coffee kind of guy.
I was imitating a case of the vapors.
I take my coffee *very* seriously. We could go on for a while about the how and why of making good coffee, but like anything else (cars, cigars, whiskey, food, etc) you can get cheap things that are possible, you can spend more and get significantly better stuff, and you can foolishly spend crazy amounts of money and effort on diminishing returns.
If you guys like your coffee, rock on. (Which is why I tried to answer Mike's question seriously before I joked). I like spending the time effort and money on better coffee.
The answer to Terry's question is, the roasting process creates gasses (mostly CO2). After appropriate aging of roasted beans there is a nice amount of built up gasses in the beans. Coffee brewed with the right amount of out gassing has significantly better texture, aroma, and more complex flavors then older or "stale" coffee. The texture especially is more pleasant. Grinding the beans significantly increases the speed of out gassing of the roast coffee. So after roasting you want to let the whole beans sit for a week or two, then you want to brew within a couple minutes of grinding to optimize the coffee.
Of course grind size, consistency, water quality, brew method and technique all play a part in the final product.