Correct me if I'm wrong: you mean that in the real world, salted passwords have only one advantage over plain text passwords, which is to buy you some time ? (albeit it's a strong advantage)
It's only technically "buying some time." In reality it's keeping it completely secure.
And what use would a hacker have attacking a whole database full of them? It would take too long to do it, even with less secure passwords. It takes your fruit out of the "low hanging" category, which is a bit of security in itself.