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i think that when people say there's no secret, what they are really saying is that you have to practice doing it correctly at whatever tempo you can do it at until you can do it 4 or 6 bpm faster, then rinse and repeat until you can do it so fast that it's not tasteful anymore. then you can do it at the drop of a hat in any real musical situation. it is (literally and figuratively) like lifting weights. the only way to lift what you cannot lift is to first lift what you can many, many times.
another thread on the forum was discussing Freddy Gruber. anyway, he once said somthing along the lines of "you've got to be where you're at. because otherwise, if you're not, then it begs the question 'where are you?'" i think that's what he was talking about too.

Bruce Lee said "absorb what is useful; disregard what is useless." so anyway basically when you are playing it slower, it works, but when you go faster it doesn't, so something has to be happening differently. you just need to do it more and more the correct way, the useful way, and overcome the temptation to try to play it faster and faster in the useless way. this is not to say that there are not sort of graduated techniques to be used at different tempos. if you need to play it faster than your normal technique can safely do it, then find that threshold and really practice getting control of that next technique by using it right at that speed or slightly slower, with the same mentality as before.

anyway, i don't know if that's what Billy meant, but those are my thoughts.