Well the variance is a bit deceptive because the games are so fast.
So yes, while you can lose 10 buyins in 20 minutes, reality is, even a very small edge adds up over time, that's why the winners in this game are making better hourly rates in hyper turbo HUSNGs than turbos, regular speeds and more than ever before (better than in 2006-2008).
You're totally right about the mental side too. But I like to think that if you want to play poker for a profit, you should really work on keeping your negative emotions in check. And if you work towards that, no game really rewards tilt free play than hyper turbo HUSNGs, because so many opponents will tilt and give you some free edge.
I've personally found it easier to not tilt in hypers versus turbos back in the day (I started by playing mostly turbos and reg speed, but when super/hyper turbos came out I moved to those). Because suckouts and huge win and loss streaks can happen in such a small amount of time, it's really easy for me to not pay attention to how much I'm up or down during a session, I'm just totally focused on playing my best and having fun. Of course, that's just my own experience.
One quick example, a few years ago I was down around $10,000 playing $200 and $350 super turbo HUSNGs on Full Tilt. This is about as high as I've ever played at the time. But I went on a streak of 22 wins in a row and made back something like half my downswing after an entire 2 hour session. Given that you can get out of a hole so fast, it's kind of neat in my mind to not have to worry about downswings as much. If you're playing well and you have an edge, profit will come at some point. And if you don't have an edge, then you need to work hard to get an edge and not focus on anything else.
Just my own thoughts on it.
I'd personally play hyper turbo HUSNGs, a popular zoom format or MTTs if I were to start playing poker with zero knowledge today. Those are are the popular games that have a lot of soft money for players that choose to take them seriously and work hard in. 6 max hypers aren't bad either, but they aren't as large as HUSNGs, so I'd probably put them as my 4th choice.