> Basically, there's a bit of a spectrum of fast vs smart. In general it's hard to do incredibly smart stuff fast enough to compete in the "speed-critical" bucket of trades and vice-versa there's barely any point in being ultra-fast in the "non-speed-critical" bucket because your alphas last for minutes to hours.

Depending on the overall strategy, you can be smart and fast at once. If you have occasional alpha harvesting opportunities that must be acted on quickly (very low latency but also low-ish frequency), then it is possible to spend the time in between trades modeling market context and developing optimal short-term plans for how to react in case of various market triggers.