What's the best way to go over annotated games?

I keep hearing so many variants of advice regarding this "good" chess-improving habit. Some are quite contradictory ...for example:

• Go over them quickly ... you need to be efficient at running over 100s of games and very soon, you will subconsciously "sponge in" standardized patterns
  
• Go over them painstakingly slow ... read up all the author's variations and comments. Be sure to review this game until you have it memorized.
• Go over them moderately fast .... don't waste time on the variations, just the actual moves and the motives behind them.
• Do not use a board ... figure it all out with the diagrams provided and visualize the 4-5 moves (and variations) in-between diagrams all in your head.
• Always use a board...you need to see things clearly to play out all the variations!
• Cover the "winning player's" move and try to guess what the winner played much like Pandolfini's solitaire chess?
• Only play over master games that involve your opening repertoire. If you don't play King's Indian, there's no point going over such games.
  

So many opposing pieces of advice ... but I'd like strong players to help me clear the fog here. Or is it a matter of what method works uniquely for you?

Hope you guys can weigh in and let me know what is the most time-efficient (say I barely have 1/2  hour a day to open up a chess book) way to get the most out of going over annotated master games?  I have to mention that I have a terrible short-term memory and find it really hard to remember games all too well.

Thanks in advance!

S.

for my studying, i've always studied GM chess games. at first, i'd find one of the GMs that i admired most or wanted to imitate and study all of their games. Some of them i'd go by quickly others i'd go by slow. it depends on the game and the interest level.

30 minutes a day is hardly enough i suppose...there's a quote that goes something like, "of chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is the fault of life, not chess." 30 minutes a day though, just find one game and study it for a couple days. an hour a game should suffice to some degree

http://blog.chess.com/ih8sens/how-to-study

some info in there on it.

You don't need to study games super quickly or super slow... just make them practical.  And avoid guy's like topalov :P ... their style will get inferior players into a LOT of trouble.  Anand, Kasparov, Kramnik ... much better to study.