I am somewhat surprised how important fast typing seems to be for computer users, mainly developers.

It is never the typing that is my personal bottleneck. As a developer, I spend perhaps 99% of my time thinking of the problem, before actually writing the best and most concise solution. When writing reports or other academic papers, I first construct the sentences before writing them slowly while reading out loud.

I guess this is personal preference, but I think it is worth the time to type slowly, instead of letting the fingers do the thinking.