I'll bite.
There is a lot of merit in the speed approach. Not too long ago I played a game where I found myself militarily behind--the other side had more powerful ships and more of them. My advantages was that I am human and that I had speed (4 and 5 versus 2 and 3). The speed turned out to be a force multiplier. I simply ate the other guy in pieces. First, I slipped behind the fighters and took out the transports. Then I took out his supporting starbases, and then finally I isolated ship groups and took them out one by one.
Another advantage to getting speed early is that you can do an early blitz on the bad guys. In one game against four opponents myself and another race were large and the other three were small. Very early on I blitzed two of the smaller races to get ahead.
I'm 49 and a wargamer from way back. It is like a walk down memory lane to do a blitz. In most of my games now I seek a speed advantage and when I attack I use blitz tactics (penetrate to the rear and destory weaker targets first thus isolating the stronger ones and then taking them out one by one).
