Wicket taking does slow the run rate. If you're bustling along at 6 an over and you lose 2-3 wickets the run rate goes down because the situation of the match changes.
You become more cautious, because you don't want to lose any more wickets soon.
Not really. If the bowling continues to be wayward, it'll continue to get smashed. That hasn't been the case today, it's been in the same areas throughout, the scoring-rate has been restricted throughout, and the wickets have come.
The most effective way to take wickets is the same as any cricket - bowl at the batsmens weakness, bowl on a good length or try and trap the batsmen into creating a false stroke.
Of course. And to bowl economically too, naturally.
And my take wickets to be a front-line bowler 'mentality' is no more baffling than choosing players 3 years ahead of a World Cup based on playing them in that tournament.
They're hardly remotely analogous TBH. As I say, I accept that some people, Australians especially, don't like it, but that's the way I'd do things. If you value each ODI, then you'd pick the best team to try and win it. But I don't. The only ODI results I care about are those in World Cups, and I want to use every ODI outside them to try and build a team for the ODI where results matter to me.
However, a bowler is a bowler. If a good one-day bowler has to be a wicket-taker to you, that's an attitude I find baffling. It makes no sense to me. Because a one-day game lasts 50 overs only, and if you bowl economically you'll restrict the total. And if you keep bowling economically, wickets will fall to boot (not that it matters whether they do or don't). Equally, you can restrict the total by bowling a side out in 30 overs, and that's fair enough too if you can do it.