Queen's gambit Accepted

I am wondering why the QGA is played here about 90% of the time in my games by players under 1300.  Is it the opening most recommended at that ELO to 1.d4? 

A lot of them from my experience think they can hold on to the pawn. So punish those people. But other than that I believe it's just the simplest with less theory then a QGD position

That's what I was thinking. I remember when I first started playing, that i panicked in classical e4/e5 and d4/d5 openings. Felt like I had to take in order to avoid being taken (exchange variations). Eventually I realized that ...e6, ...c6, etc. were actually more than acceptable.

3.Nf3 can be pretty closed though. It's not easy to make a mess unless Black tries something like 3...Be6 or 3...b5 and even then White has safe options leading to pretty normal positions.