OK, it's kind of ironic that I'm doing this, since about 3-4 months ago, I was on the other side of the fence; I didn't think AI was bad. It hurt S&B, which was "the bad guy", the strategy that was mindless and always won. But, due to similar arguments to those being given now, I was convinced of the error of my ways.
I think one thing that "Lord of Shadows" said needs to be addressed. He said, "why should I have to put rush into my deck if it's a non-combat deck?" The answer is that you don't.
(In NL, anyway) There are 5 anti-S&B tactics: Rush, Bounce, Intercept, Blood Gain, Race. These have been explained to great length in Alec Chang's post, so I won't go into them here. Any or all of these can use one of the most effective sub-strategies: Don't Block. If you know that you have no intercept to speak of, then don't even attempt to block. Pretty soon those bleeds for 7 that you're so afraid of become bleeds for 1 or 2, as they plead with you to block and get one of the 7 stealth cards out of their hand.
There is no doubt that these strategies are effective. Rush is particularly nasty. Bounce is almost the canonical anti-bleed strategy. Intercept, while touted by some to be the strategy that's necessary to stop S&B, is quite possibly the weakest, as it is liable to get jammed with intercept card when not being assaulted by Obf-based stealth. Blood Gain and Race are the champions of Don't Block. These decks are so concerned with killing their prey or gaining tons of pool that they completely ignore their predator.
So, "Lord of Shadows"' statement seems to imply that he resents having to even use one of these strategies. Well, in that case, the deck will not be well designed. Every deck needs to consider: how will I deal with combat? How will I deal with votes? How will I deal with S&B? Etc. A deck which has a way to deal with many different strategies is versatile, and thus a good deck.