most people don't seem particularly bright when delivering (or worse still, reading) a prepared speech
Hear. Hear. Delivering a scripted speech well is HARD, and the people who are famous for doing that well practice a lot. Most members of the hacker community are much more practiced in engaging in conversation about the passion for technology, and thus make themselves look better in speech and in print by treating each communication opportunity as a conversation with an unseen interlocutor.
+1, personally I'm pretty comfortable talking to all kinds of people in person but our team found that talking to a camera unscripted was hard (compounded by the amount of information it sounded like we needed to pack in to 60 seconds). It was still really helpful for getting our message straight though, even if we don't get in to the YC summer cycle it will be helpful for raising money.
Hear. Hear. Delivering a scripted speech well is HARD, and the people who are famous for doing that well practice a lot. Most members of the hacker community are much more practiced in engaging in conversation about the passion for technology, and thus make themselves look better in speech and in print by treating each communication opportunity as a conversation with an unseen interlocutor.