I've had a lot of discussions with people about short strokes vs. long strokes and since I play both snooker and pool I get both perspectives on it.
It's actually quite rare to see a true short stroke in snooker (unless we are talking about low level amateurs). The accuracy in position needed just seem to make the short strokes at a disadvantage, especially since you are often stunning the ball into "open space" and cant rely on rails to slow you down, you even have to stun the ball a long distance sometimes, while this is quite rare on the pool table. The common teaching in snooker is to pull back different lengths for different speeds and accellerate the cue through the ball. This works so well, that it's quite rare to see anyone deviate from it (that are at a 100 break standard or even 50 break standard).
On the other hand I see a lot of short strokes in pool, and they do pretty well. I don't think you actually need as smooth a stroke for pool, I mean it's always an advantage, but maybe a bit less of one in pool than in snooker. You don't need orthodox fundamentals to do well in pool at all. I see jabs, swerves, people jacking up their cues on every shot and many of them get out anyway! How I do not know?
I watched a video of Tommy Kennedy now, after someone mentioned him, and I noticed that his cue tip was quite a long distance away from the cue ball on his forward pause. While his backswing was indeed short and accurate, I think there would definitely be a potential improvement to move the tip of the cue closer to the cueball than he does, probably not for him, but for people trying to emulate him, I'd definitely think so. I only mention this to show that there are other sources for inaccuracies than just stroke length in itself. In no way do I want to put down one of the true gentlemen of the game, btw.
I no longer try to shorten my stroke for accuracy, I don't want to fight my "nature" anymore. Instead I try to almost glue my tip to the ball on the forward pause and worked hard on my back-to-forward stroke transition. I think those two things may be a lot more important than stroke length, if your alignment and stroke are at least reasonably straight. If your stroke is terrible, anyway, then shortening it could be a good last resort or even if your stroke is off one day. However I don't think shortening the stroke is a cure-all for stroke problems.