[pjspycha]

It was also really unimpressive in my opinion, instead of being smarter and making broad decisions about tactics that are harnessed by some perfect unit composition knowledge, the AI won on a purely micro scale.

There are videos from several microbots such as Automaton 2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKVFZ28ybQs that showcase what super APM can do. The DeepMind AI that beat some pro players did it by having better micro while generally having worse strategies. The DeepMind matches showed how better micro can turn a generally weaker unit composition into the winning unit composition just as that Automaton 2000 video did.

To me it seemed that the DeepMind team figured out that the only way to beat competent players was to do what all those microbots do and pump APM into godly levels. They decided to limit APM, however like you said, just average APM and have the bots explode APM when needed. The real funny match was when MaNa beat Deepmind by completely breaking the AI with generally simple drop strategies and made Deepmind look very much inept.