You guys must have had too many marsupial turds in your coffee... (I'm kidding, I just like using the phrase "marsupial turds"... kind of catchy)
In theory ABS is slower than non-ABS (I completely agree with this); however, a human being cannot break faster than ABS with any level of consistency regardless of skill. You can put Andretti, Montoya, Bondurant, etc, in the same car and let them stop in a straight line 100 times and if they are lucky they just might be able to outstop the ABS a few times. Put them in a turn and the liklihood decreases because the weight shift is much more complicated. As you have mentioned ABS pulses faster than any human being could consciously "lift" off the pedal due to the reaction time. There is no such thing as a zero second reaction time that when a driver recognizes the wheels locking up that he/she can instantaneous lift and reapply the brakes. On the other hand a skilled driver cannot consistently stay at the edge of locking the wheels... He/she can do it better than we can, but not faster than ABS.
I completely agree that it hinders the development of a driver because it acts as a crutch, but it also keeps people safe. We also aren't driving million dollar cars that if we wreck them a sponsor pays for a new one.