In my experience, "what works" is not the same thing as optimizing the experience of skiing - massively for the better, at least in my case.
There is no getting around it, a race ski (either slalom or gs) is just so much different and really fun - both as a change of pace and as just pure enjoyment (kinda like being on a roller coaster for on edge acceleration and carving precision as opposed to the different experience of, say, an all mountain
old snow day carver like the top performing Brahma 88. (I own a pair and use that 88 - for example, for a change of pace in bumps and on groomers, off piste and on.)
At the other end of ski width, there is also no getting around how fun the drift and float feel - even for some skis the trampoline-like up and down weightless feel - of a wider ski in powder and chop/crud really is. Now I can see not valuing this (or even not knowing about it) in old, wet icy snow, melt-and-freeze areas like back East and in the Alps. Or in the "heavy wet snow" of the Pacific ranges, especially in the Pacific Northwest. But in areas of dry chalk snow, packed powder, and mid to lighter weight powder, there is just a lot of good experience and fun lost by losing out on that playfulness, that surf feel, and that different sort of control on that soft surface of powder and chop/crud, just planing and dancing in 3D.
So many good skis out there these days....just depends on what you want. 
gigiski.com
