Is Slow Growth Always Worse?

One of the underlying themes that has played a central role in the debate about stimulus, tax cuts, and reviving the economy in general is that advocates of the free market seem apolcolytpically opposed to any systemic changes that they feel will lead to slower growth once the economy gets back on it's feet.  The idea that even though the rapid growth of the financial and housing sectors (which coupled with the decline of our industrial base formed a increasingly larger part of the mid-2000's economy) is a major, major fundamental cause of the sever recession that we are in, that this should be the benchmark of our return to "normal" seems insane to me? Would a slightly lower normal rate of growth, measured by GDP or per capita consumption or whatever, necessarily be a bad thing?I'm not suggesting that people start sacrificing their quality of life here, or that we retreat into austerity as some sort of penance for our sinful ways, merely that we check the previously insatiable demand for more and more consumption.  Rather than bigger boats, bigger houses, and bigger debt. What if people read more, or saw more AAA baseball games or grabbed a beer rather than a vacation down Mexico way.  Downsized the house a bit. 10,000sq ft is a lot,  a lot more than a couple needs.  I think that though the GDP might take a hit, the growth that we do experience will be fundamentally stronger, and if you ignore GDP as the only measure of quality of life, then we might be living better lives as well.
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