Well, I was going to let this thread lie as it was on tribble, but now its on general; I guess its to time to weigh in as a pilot who thinks anything less than 100 impulse is slow (ever seen a guy in a vo'quv moving faster than most escorts in cca/isa/other or the guy in the red corvette/vorgon escort zipping around like a cat on a hot tin roof? thats likely me)

First of all reflexes - if you have the reflexes, why should you be constrained in not using them? Would you tell a fighter pilot to react slowly so they can be hit by enemy surface to air missiles? Of course not - if they have the reflexes to avoid danger, they will - same as in sto (on a second point... there are instances in star trek where torpedos have been outrun, so that point is moot)

Now for the big elephant in the room you have not noticed (or avoided a it does not fit the story you present) - Speed lowers potential damage.

Why you ask? Think about it logically - 5 fore weapons each take x seconds to fire, each in sequence before heading to the aft weapon sequence

If you are going too fast then, you cannot complete a full firing cycle of your fore weapons before passing onto the rear arc (where rears can fire but not fores) - ie, lowered damage potential.  Contrary to common, misinformed belief, unless you really buff an attack, two; possibly three fore weapon discharges are not going to perform the archetypal 'vape' - but if you buffed to that extent and went slower, you'd still die but now they'd be able to fire every weapon instead!

As to the power of speed tanking..well, yet again sto has you covered - there are a plethora of ways to defeat a speed demon

1. Drain engine power - easy enough to do - polaron, energy siphon, neutronic, target subsystems amonst others - Lower engine power equals slower speeds
2. Disable engines - Again, another option
3. Spread torpedos - The bane of my time in kerrat, spreads have 100% accuracy and no matter how far you run (I did an experiment in the past doing a 2.3k impulse run from a friend firing spreads) THEY WILL HIT
4. Subnukes - kill the buffs, speed slows to a stop
5. [Snare] proc weapons - 5% speed reduction seems weak on a slow dread but 5% on a speed demon? its like draining a chunk of weapon power
6. Chroniton weapons - Yet more slow down
7. Proper use of control powers - sure apo, polarise hull can negate control powers but ever noticed how long the lull between uses are? or insead of trying to stop them, do something crazy, like, say... use tbr and when close, fire off a photonic shockwave
8. Use your evasive and run away - if you stick around, you will get slaughtered so run
9. If you see them coming, use your own speed to raise the distance between their firing point and you - If you reverse while using evasive, you can drastically reduce the damage you will take due to damage falloff

Speed is fine - it has its pros, its cons... and more importantly - a plethora of ways to counter it.