Like everything related to the Rinnegan - it was never explained. Though it's not that hard to make the educated assumption that, like many details over the course of the manga, Kishi kept making shit up as he went along. In my opinion/educated assumption, Kishi thoroughly planned out all of the Rinnegan abilities when he created Pain. Then, after the arc, he decided to write in the plot twist that "Madara" (Tobi) was the one who gave Pain the Rinnegan. All's well so far. But then he decided to have "Madara" (Tobi) take the Rinnegan and give the Edo Tensei Jin a copy of one as well... and that's where I believe Kishi threw things out the window as at that point he had already made up his mind to introduce all the overly-complicated plot threads with Madara and Obito, not to mention that plot-wise Obito + Edo Jin with even ONE of the Pain's abilities each would have completely shat on Naruto/Bee at the time of their fight.
BUT THEN he gave the real Madara BACK his Rinnegan and again, at that point, Madara would have ABSOLUTELY shat on everyone had he been able to use ALL of the Pain's abilities - so Kishi nerfed the Rinnegan. Now Sasuke is a different matter all together as, unlike the Sharingan, we've never encountered two Rinnegan users before. So you could make the argument that in Sasuke's case he either doesn't have access to the same abilities or that he's simple not as experienced/doesn't know how to use them. Again, In my opinion Kishi made the decision to have Sasuke only be able to use a few NEW abilities exclusive to himself as not only would Sasuke be just as OP as Madara at that point but since Kishi already made up his mind to nerf Madara's usage of the Rinnegan it would only make sense to nerf Sasuke's "potential" usage as well.