It's worth mentioning though that Sheldon Brown's thoughts are based on fairly old designs and materials given he hasn't been around for 12 years. He may have expressed those thoughts well before his death too making his comments based on even older units. Material technology in particular has progressed a lot recently. He doesn't mention the other area, apart from punctures, where airless has a big advantage and that is in protecting the rim. He extoles the virtue of the pneumatic's better ability to compress but that stops at the far edge of a pothole when the tyre is forced back all the way to the rim and then that force goes into deforming said rim. He derides the airless tyre's ever increasing deformation resistance but doesn't mention that will greatly assist in protecting the rim.
I've used the pre-filled slime tubes before. it was one of those that had the aforementioned blow out. I also have a CO2 inflater but just like a pump it needs to be carried and is almost as vulnerable to theft as a pump, just slightly less visible in the little under seat bag.
I'm not trying to extract the last ounce of any performance and I usually have a spring or two and often a bit of padding to use for comfort. If an airless can function at the level of an average pneumatic tyre it'll be acceptable to me. The question is can any of them reach that average level of performance.