As you indirectly suggest, it really depends who the user is. Especially when you say these methods beat pronunciation-based methods, I think it's important to

As you indirectly suggest, it really depends who the user is. Especially when you say these methods beat pronunciation-based methods, I think it's important to qualify that as something that depends on the specific user. For a touch typist and an only semi-literate (emphasis on semi) non-native speaker, the ability to go straight to touch typing of pinyin with absolutely no learning curve is a HUGE advantage over other systems. By contrast, this system does not leverage my existing typing ability at all, so its ultimate speed is gated by the fact that I will never bother to use and learn it. For users like me, the same is true of other such systems. The point is just that theoretical speed comparisons are moot for some people if practical matters make one system more useful. Speaking of moot, it seems to me that all our points may be moot as voice input is going to be an ever growing proportion of how text is entered. Especially in Chinese languages.