Openings at a High level

If you don't want to read all that I wrote below, my question is whether or not there really is an opening phase to high level games. Or if it is just a memorization battle. Read below for more elaboration though.

At my current level, I try to avoid book lines as much as possible. I know a few steps (like for the french, maybe first 5 moves of the Sicilian, KID). But I don't think I know any more than the first 5 moves for any opening. The reason for this is that I'm not at the level in which learning each variation for each opening would make such a difference in my games. 

The second reason goes more along with my point of this discussion. By avoiding these common book lines, it gives me a chance to figure out myself which moves I should open with to get some advantage in the opening. I am allowed more creativity and I could use my own skill. 

I am not a high rated player so I can only base all of this through speculation. It seems as though at a high level, the first 10 or so moves would be "blitz" without much thought. The only opening creativity one would have is deviating with certain variations in order to reach a middle game that is preferred or uncomfortable to the opponent. But these variations are still known to both players, and there would be no big surprise on how to respond to these "deviations". Thus the opening phase is largely based just on the preparation and memorization of each player. It also seems to be leaking towards even the middle game (with more computer analysis). 

I hope I was able to be clear on what I'm saying. I'm not trying to say that the opening is not important, nor that at high levels players don't think through it at all. What I mean is, the thought process is all based on the variations. If you do a certain move, you know in general how it already is going to end up in the middle game. Currently, when I do a certain move I have very little idea on how my opponent would respond. Of course I can estimate which seems like the best move (but in general there seems to be more freedom in the opening on which is the best move). I guess an easy way to say it is that, each opening at a high level has been played with already or seen. Like I feel that each high ranked players have played the exact same variations of openings with either their own previous game or with another player. I guess I rambled a little too much.