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The GHOST protocol only made the security properties of a group of short block times similar to longer block times. Before GHOST, short block times had worse security properties. POW over time still determines how secure a transaction really is.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/881.pdf

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Design-Rationale

https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/09/14/on-slow-and-fast-block-...

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The attack model changes based on transaction size. For sub 10,000$ transactions the threat model is not someone with more hashing power than the network. It's someone with 1/k th the networks processing power getting lucky. Which is bound by both total network hashing power and the number of blocks you wait giving a significant usability advantage to faster blocks.

That assumes the person actually needs fast block confirmation times. The security properties of block times gets pretty complex and bitcoin's model is no slouch: https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1019.pdf

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