"Brute force" in AI context is usually reserved for traversal of the entire search space. I think "superhuman micromanagement" is a better term. And before AlphaStar superhuman micro wasn't insurmountable obstacle for human players.
Yes, since DeepMind chose SC2 for having the right characteristics for mapping to the real world, ie imperfect information and real time response, they should have had at least one run without any speed governors. And maybe another with the CPU limited to some level we might find in an embedded system of near future.
"Brute force" in AI context is usually reserved for traversal of the entire search space. I think "superhuman micromanagement" is a better term. And before AlphaStar superhuman micro wasn't insurmountable obstacle for human players.