Great comprehension Log thanks for ripping this one's spine out. I'd be happier if you guys stepped one little foot further about the age-old issue and choose which option defines the game for you.
It has to be a combination. We have seen it all over the place in the history of the NBA. Why is there a shot clock, or rules about the "time line", or "over and back" once in the half court set? These came about due to one team's attempt to dominate "time with the ball" to minimize their opponent's ability to score. This was an effective way to stop the opponent from scoring and so was used a lot, therefore they made rules to stop this practice, in order to make the game more enjoyable. We have seen "high-octane" offenses, with little defense played, and these systems have seen moderate success. I am sure someone somewhere has done a statistical analysis of this exact topic, as it would lend itself to such statistical analysis very well.
I think, though, that in the end you would find that most teams or systems that win consistently would have a combination of highly efficient offensive AND defensive schemes. Think of the Jazz and Bulls teams of the 90's. Both were consistently ranked as among the top half of the league in both offensive and defensive efficiency. I think that a tactic of all of one or all of the other may yield results on a short-term basis, but for lasting success it would have to be a combination. Sure, a team may be much stronger offensively than defensively, or vice versa, but I would highly doubt you are going to find many championship teams that ranked among the top 5 in offense, and at the same time the bottom 5 in defense, or vice versa. I think in recent memory the team that fit this mold more than others was Billup's Pistons, who iirc were consistently in the top 3 teams in defensive efficiency, but usually middle of the pack offensively, yet still far from an offensive bottom-dweller, so to speak.
Most rule changes, incidentally, have been geared toward fans more than players, if you think about it. If the game is deemed "too slow", we institute a shot-clock to speed it up. If it is deemed to be too "rough" or too low-scoring, we institute new rules about hand-checking and make it harder to defend to increase scoring or fluidity since defense tends to stifle the flow of the game. But who is doing the "deeming"? It is the fans, or at least the NBA's interpretation of what they think the fans want the "product" of their business to be. If the game were kept in its purest form, without meddling by fickle fans, we would still have teams that spend upwards of a minute for any given possession and games that ended with scores regularly in the mid-70's for both teams.