You see, you sound like a thinking driver, whereas there are too many drivers out there who are not and are over-confident in their driving skills. This is where speeding drivers are a danger to others. I do many of the same defensive driving habits you do while driving even when observing the limit.
When I was a kid, I read several books about speeding teenage drivers. One was called “To Trenton in 30 minutes”, but I don’t know if this is the one that had the “advice” the kid had of always using speed to get out of trouble.
In any case, that became my driving style, and as often as not I’d accelerate to get out of the way of something, rather than slam on the brakes. As I got older, I learned the limits of that style, but it still is helpful sometimes.
Speed gives you maneuverability that you lose if you are slamming the brakes (well, in modern cars you can steer pretty well while slamming the brakes).
On the other hand, for all of my thinking as a driver, I’ll never live down the time I took my brand-new Prius and slammed it into a light pole in a parking lot at over 20 mph, totalling the car.
It was a “sun-related” incident.