I may be missing something, but how does connecting to ckpool "lower" any latency? The block header is 80 bytes, and AFAIK most miners are okay with mining an empty block on top of a valid header for a few seconds because "Who the heck would produce a valid header without a valid merkle-root?" Sure, the previous block needs to be downloaded completely to figure which transactions to include in the next block, but we are talking about 2% fee.
So high speed (which I assume means "high throughput" in this context) seems practically (if not completely) unnecessary. Then latency being the main (arguably only) important factor, I remain unconvinced.
its not just about solving a block. its then propagating that solve out to the whole network so they can "first seen" it and declare it a winner if its validated before another pool does.
a pool is not connected to 8 nodes like a normal home user is. a pool is usually connected to hundreds of nodes including other pools.
other pools dont waste their connections on that many random users. they prefer to white list other pools and then merchant services(economically important nodes) who then propagate out to their peers.
so the more connections a pool has to important peers means their block solve gets seen and validated before other pools solve their block. and of course a pool is connected to the 13000 asics(2325 users)
..
a normal hobby miner doing true and very well known actual solo mining where it has to get the previous block, create its own header and then send the work to its own asic, takes longer. for these reasons:
its not in the same hierarchy of the important nodes(pools and merchants) so it gets its last block delayed by atleast two peer 'relay times', then because its usually managed by a desktop computer which validates the previous block slower. and then prunes off the spent coins out of mempool and then picks the unspent transactions from mempool to add to a template. means the hobby miner managing itself would take longer. and then because its not then well connected to other peers. if it solved a block propagating that block might require several 'relay times' before the important nodes see it.
all of which gives pools an upper hand of multiple seconds compared to a home hobby miner doing it truly solo