You can win without a speed advantage.  As far as colony rushing goes, sure a +2 speed advantage out of the gate is useful, but it's slightly more important to build cheap colony ships and lots of them.  You should aim to research Interstellar Construction and get access to the Small ship sizes as soon as possible.  This will save a small amount on the construction of each colony ship.  You can also research up to Impulse Drive and net yourself a +1 free speed boost that way.

After the colony rush, you can buy up the planets which you missed, or spore them or invade them.  You don't need speed for that.

The hitpoints pick is quite handy when combined with the bonus for Xinthanium Hull Plating and the hitpoint bonus techs.  Being able to take more punishment is way more useful than being able to speed around the galaxy.

I actually posted this 2 years ago, but noone addressed it seriously because I made a typo and said +8 to speed.  Then I edited it (without labeling it as edited), which set off another rampage of posts.  Lesson learned.

I like speed alot, and like economics and morale, it is helpful the entire game.  I prefer it over the others because it also allows you to explore more anomalies which can improve economics and morale.  In the long run, I believe that the additional anomalies you find will give you more +eco and +morale then the initial selection of those abilities.