Did you see how well Sky played at Tourning Stone? He was playing faster than I've seen him play in a long time. When SVB gets rolling he can play very fast. Orcullo does the same, as do many top professionals.
I don't recall SVB or Orcullo ever being speed demons. I either didn't see or don't recall Sky's recent play at Turning Stone so I can't say if your assessment of his speed is accurate or not, but even if he was playing fast so what, all you did was point out a case of where a guy played well while playing fast, something we both already agree can happen. My contention is that you don't, on average, play your best that way so it is rarely the best idea to play that way if playing your best is the main goal.
Heck, even Mr. Slow and Smooth Morra just played nearly flawless in his elimination match WHILE playing under a 30 second shot clock! I saw repeated shots where he didn't even bother to site the shotline from the pocket out through the object ball like he normally does on every shot. How was that possible? Albin is the same. He can be painfully deliberate at times but he pretty much ALWAYS plays great -- even with a shot clock. Hmmm.
I don't recall ever saying people can't play well with a shot clock.
That said, without question everybody will play better without one, but I don't think the differences would be massive except for the faster players who play substantially faster than the shot clock where they will see a more substantial jump in their game by slowing and being more careful and deliberate.
Now you're just changing what you said. You were much more empathic with your language. Let me remind you what you said: "...the totality of the evidence supporting that everybody (once you force yourself to get used to it and give it a fair chance) will play to their maximum potential when they play slow is overwhelming."
That is not at all different than or inconsistent with what I said after when I spelled it out a little more.
We could also be thinking of different things when we think of "slow". I'm not talking Kaci or Candela here yet it seems you may be thinking of extremes.
It's hard to argue with someone who actually believes this.
It's hard to argue with people who willfully ignore the evidence when it doesn't go along with how they would prefer things to be.
Do players need to be deliberate enough that they properly study the table -- Yes! Do players need to study every single shot possibility, every angle, every potential carom line, only to then get down on the ball and feather the cue ball 20 times? Most certainly not!
It depends on the shot. I don't think 20 warm up strokes (if that is what you mean by "feather the cue ball") are ever necessary though.
What I think happens is players create a self-fulfilling prophecy once they go down the slow play road, where every mistake they make they attribute to a skipped step in their ever growing pre-shot routine. It's really hard to tell yourself you missed because you simply stroked the ball poorly. It's much easier to believe you somehow didn't see the shot angle properly, even though you've shot the shot thousands of times.
What I think happens is that people that don't enjoy playing at a very deliberate careful pace which that invariably is on the slower end of the spectrum, or that don't enjoy when their opponent plays at that pace, or don't enjoy watching pool played at that pace, ignore the evidence clearly showing that it results in better play simply because they just don't want it to be true.
We also seem to be thinking of different things when we think about the benefits of more careful deliberate play. I think stringent pre-shot routines are overrated, and I don't think people fail to see the proper shot angle all that often. I agree that lots of misses are because you stroked the ball poorly, but among other things I think lots of those could have been prevented if you were taking your time to be a little more careful not to make that mistake.
I'm playing more free and enjoying the game more.
I've mentioned that in the past. You absolutely might be enjoying the game more when you play fast, but you aren't playing to your fullest potential. And that's fine if getting more playing enjoyment takes precedence over playing better and winning more.
One HUGE enormous problem with the whole conversation of fast vs slow play is that having actually good, textbook, shot mechanics doesn't necessarily have anything to do with pace of play.
You can't have your best mechanics or anything else when done fast. Doesn't mean people have to take two years on a shot either, but the fact is most people would benefit from taking more time, at least on a portion of their shots.
In the past, I think most fast players had poor technique. Not only would they fly around the table, but they would also fly around on the shot. Today's faster players actually have much better technique while down on the ball.
They do, but they don't do anything as well as they would if they were more careful and deliberate which invariably requires slowing down a bit.