Fully agree with you Full Wings esp the last part - there is a
lot of throttle bashing these days from the automatons, who
I believe just aren't trained in turbulence recognition and
flying (with and without AP) on both Boeings and Airbooses.
As you say Vturb is of course only for severe turbulence, but
there are times I'd rather be just a tad too fast at relatively
high altitude than too slow, to cater for the possibility of a
sudden high TAT rise when within large areas of embedded
active CuNim (my flying is mainly sub tropical/tropical).
That's assuming of course one is stuck at a high level without
enough comfort-zone "fat" on one's ASI.
For planned turbulence I use not above optimum in the 320,
and used 2000ft below optimum in the 737 when I was on it
(even 4000ft below in some extremes).