These are exactly the things that make it more "real" of a game, to me. It encourages guessing, yes, but it also encourages snap-shot pattern recognition, quick decision making, bluffing, calmness under pressure, and as you say, is great fun when the heart gets pumping in a close game as time runs out... In other words, it's less theoretical, and more like life.

>Good blitz players are good chess players who happen to put their skills to a use by playing blitz, but they haven't developed these skills just by playing blitz

I'm a class A player, and I've probably played < 20 slow chess games over the past 15 years.