While I admire the "I don't care how fast I go, or my average speed" attitude, it is not realistic when it comes to planning. You cannot plan a ride with other people unless you know how fast you all ride; you cannot plan a long ride unless you have some sense of whether you have time to finish it ... But when we get over 125 miles or so, "how fast do you go" quickly translates to "how far can you go (in the time available)" and these are not rhetorical questions.
I agree - this is far more relevant to my own riding also. It also relates to why I raised the questions to begin with... what you or I or anyone else defines as "average" may (and probably will) vary wildly, but each of us probably has some sort of context, i.e., "Oh, I can make that route in X hours" for instance. If you choose to ride with a group that "averages" X mph, one might be surprised if the group guesstimates their average speed using a different understanding than you do. I know it's all academic (and wholly unrelated to the attitudes most of us here subscribe to), but it made me curios about how different riders think about such things.
You know... the 41 not withstanding, of course!