A friend i play with who is 3rd in his diamond division like me refuses to spam APM for no reason and ends up with an average in the 40s most games. He also is very effective at playing any of the races like that.
This is definitely the case; it's not so much how fast you're going as how much you're getting done. The real measure of "throughput" that the player is achieving is a very subjective thing, and in practice APM isn't really the most appropriate metric. However, as a theoretical concept for the purposes of discussion, it can work.
It's still better not to queue units, because you'll convince yourself you have less money than you really do
More importantly, if you
can queue large numbers of units this means you've allowed large quantities of money to accumulate, which is itself a major mistake.
The pathing is still pretty bad - units still won't find targets if there are units in the way, and reapers will take the most bizarre paths ever conceived.
I haven't noticed serious pathing problems in SC2. Certainly it's worlds better than SC1. Reapers can occasionally do weird things, but given the
immense concentration it takes to run a successful reaper harass while maintaining your economy, these minor quirks are a non-issue by comparison.
You still need control groups to be effective
I've never encountered a RTS where this is not true.
