Robin, of course a balance is needed. Otherwise, would have I directed you to read Brian’s article?

There’s actually no choice to be made here but, either use an ideal title (catchy & optimized), or not. Not catchy or optimized. In my personal opinion, writing a catchy title also implies using those keywords. Smart keywords means that they are generally accepted an used, which makes them attractive, so you want it or not, they’ll pop up in the title either way.

Of course you can force yourself not to use them, but there’s the risk of coming up with an attractive, but irrelevant, title.

Optimization stands for really long term traffic. Catchy can sometimes generate only buzz that could probably pass in a while. As you said, a mixture of both is ideal.

If you think about the potential advantages of a an article title that grabs its audience. It can bring in heavier traffic, provoke more discussion (and linkbacks), etc.

The ideal is of course engaging headlines that also incorporate keywords. But given the choice I think I tend to lean towards the engagement rather than the keyword.