Was there any canonical or production-related reason for the fights in Dragon Ball Z being dragged out? A person and I had a chance to discuss DBZ over this weekend, and they weren't one of the few people that grew up watching it, but were trying to catch up.

However, they were very put off from the length of the fights with major protagonists, and I for one don't blame them.  I can't recall specifically were they were starting, but the phrase "are they still on Namek?" has already reached meme status.

So, I'd like to know if there was any official reason as to why these fights were dragged out as long as they were.  This also includes the fight with Cell and the fight with Majin Buu (although I don't recall watching the end of that one).
I think there's largely two reasons for these fights being so long and dragged out:


There were points when the anime was being released faster than the manga was being published. This is a common issue in the anime industry. When this happens, the producing studio has two choices. They can either add in filler episodes (like DBZ did, also see Naruto), or they can veer from the original plot of the manga (see Fullmetal Alchemist). Thus, when the anime was caught up with the manga and had to release a new episode before the next chapter of the manga was published, they'd simply drag out the plot of the fights or add in other filler content to give the manga some time to get ahead.
It makes the studio more money. This reason probably had less of an effect on the 'dragging out' of episodes as the first reason, but it is still viable. Making fights longer means making more episodes, which in turn makes the producing studio more money. It's more of a secondary reason, or an effect of the anime being released faster than the manga, if you will.