I think there's a fine line. Sometimes I do feel like parents praise their children for anything and everything, as opposed to those valid points you mentioned. Too much praise, I've seen, can potentially turn into arrogance, and the child loses that sense of being humbled.

I've heard it's "how you praise" that matters, as in, praising the effort and not always the outcome. I think it's counterintuitive not to cheer when your child succeeds, but I guess it's a matter of being super mindful of your reaction to the "failures" (in quotes because all failures are just steps on the path of becoming, right??) and to focus on the feeling of working hard and achieving your goal, and relating back to your own experience of trial, error, success and failure. :-)

I don't look at it as over praising as much as mis-praising. Your child definitely deserves praise if he or she has accomplished something or has done well. But praising your child for everyday or mediocore results just encourages your child to not try. If they get rewarded for little effort, then they won't see the point in going above and beyond. 

I think you can most certainly over praise a child. I dated a guy in high school whose dad left notes all over the house praising his kids for random stuff. One example is that he would leave notes by all the toilets thanking his sons for remembering to put the seat down. Another example is when one of his sons got a good quize grade, he told the son individually how amazing he was, made an announcement at dinner, and put the quiz on the fridge. This son was a sophomore in high school at the time. I just feel as though the praises start to mean less when a quiz is treated as something as important as something like the SAT or ACT.

I have found that praise becomes increasingly important as your children go through puberty. Their self-esteem, especially for girls, can fall drastically. Over praising when your child is younger makes it harder to give your child meaningful praise when they are older. Save praise for when they have earned it or when they truly need it. Wasting praise early on can damage your child's confidence later on, so be careful. 

I think there is a fine line. If my child takes the trash out on his own, I praise them by saying, "thank you. You did a great job!" It seems small, but as humans I think praise is something we all desire. I also believe every child is different and some may require more praise than others. I think the important thing to remember is to praise from the heart rather than just habitually praise. Make it count and make it heard.

In my experience as both a parent and a teacher praise seems to work best when it is detailed and not a general statement. For example, when children in my class are painting I might say something like I see how hard you are working or I really like that light blue color you chose. It encourages them without a blanket statement like, "good job!" Focusing in on certain aspects of what you enjoy -  I like how you helped John get up when he fell down.You really used your great friendship skills today..let's children know you are paying close attention to them and their behavior and they are getting noticed for it.

You can absolutely over-praise. Ideally you want a child to get their motivation and satisfaction from within. When they are used to constant praise, they tend to look from approval from others instead.

I don't think there is such a thing either as long as..like you say..there are valid points. As a past special education co-teacher I saw so many children that had emotional issues and really never did get enough praise from the adults closest to them. They had very little self confidence. I do think that it needs to be valid but no, there is never too much...in my opinion..but there is too little.

Although, I think  praise is important...I do agree that the connection is also very important!!