kspoorman, what we are trying to tell you is that slowdown is a tactic, and a sometimes successful one, situationally. I wouldn't build my team around it, though, because, as the others have said, you minimize possessions and unless you plan on building very poor teams, you are going to be in situations where your team is superior and running slowdown will only increase your chances of being upset.
Find out all you can about the offenses and defenses you are running, but I wouldn't waste more time on tempo. You got essentially most of the information there is to know just now. The higher the tempo, the more possessions and opportunities your team gets (and the other team). If the odds are in your favor, you can run uptempo to maximize on that. You can slow it down to normal or slowdown when the odds decrease, but remember that going slowdown means that when you get down, you'll have fewer possessions to get back into the game... Those are the pros and cons.