It says it increases the chance of status effects, but other than that, does speed really do anything?

when you outspeed your opponent, it can’t crit you. This is why you’ll see capped pets with 6750-7000 speed. In order to outspeed The Mage.

There are a few weapons that scale based on speed, typically blessings activation is higher for higher speed pets on these weapons.... the Trident of the banished one and Prodigy staff work that way... not sure if there's even any others, it's pretty insignificant in that respect, but like Frederick said, higher speed than opponent = can't get crit. That is the main use for speed.

It sucks until it's amazing and it won't be amazing for 99%+ of players.

When you get to those 6.5K-7K speed breakpoints it's great on capped pets for end game maxing and climbing high score tables.

None of the effects that it supposedly boosts are worth it though.

If your goals don't include high score tables in the distant future, people have safely skipped speed entirely.