I'm also too cheap for bullet trains. Lots of people cheer-lead for high speed rail in America, but all I want is normal trains that run quite frequently.
Depending on what your routes and usage, higher speed is better than more frequent service.
For example, let's say your options are a 2 hour train that runs hourly, and an hour long ride that departs every other hour.
* Fast train: best case, 1 hour. Worst case, 2:59. Average case - about 2 hours.
* Slow train: best case, 2 hours. Worst case: 2:59. Average case - about 2.5 hours.
Of course this is one example - but there are definitely cases where increased speed is strictly better than increased frequency. (Unless being on the train is better than whatever you could be doing waiting for the train)
The reality though is that high speed trains aren't nearly as fast as you'd think from the claims of 250-300 km/h top speeds. Particularly in Germany, 130kph average speed on a route is very good. Replacing a 100kph train with a 130kph train doesn't make an enormous difference. In order to get double the usual speed, you need to have totally dedicated tracks, end-to-end, and they haven't done that in most places. Having trains run more often makes a huge difference in convenience and also allows you to not worry too much about missing your train.
Currently takes 6 hours by airplane. I don't see a bullet train beating that.
OTOH, there are a number of < 1500 km routes that could easily be served by train, if we didn't have some of the worst train service in the world. Bullet trains would be nice, but require new grading in many cases. I too would be happy just to get our old train network back.
