Test Tube Chess

I think I agree with Roycroft, but the other way around.

It's not that positions from real games need to appear in studies. It's not that positions from studies need to appear in, or be drawn from, real games. That's not the point. It's not about the position, it's about the idea.

Studies are worth doing - studies are fun and relevant - not because you're going to see that position in your own game, but because they contain an idea which you can later apply in another way, in your own game. For example, in this blog, it's very unlikely that you'll ever get to decide between g3 and gxh3 in that exact position; but you very well may need to decide whether your bishop is or is not the right colour.

So all in all, I don't think that studies are relevant to OTB play directly; and neither do I believe that everyday play should make demands on the way studies are built; but rather, I think that studies are there to give us the grand idea of how to go forward. It doesn't matter whether that's Nxf6 or Nxe7; what matters is that the study showed you that the knight sacrifice draws the king out into the open, and the realisation that you can then get your rooks in to the kill.