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One thing I am contemplating is whether there are army-builds for Genestealer Cults where it's ideal to eschew the Genestealer portions as go full-on horde. There are two ways I could see such a build going down:

2 CADs, 4 Broodlords, lots and lots of Neophyte units.

One CAD with 2 Magi and 2 Neophyte units, and 2 separate Doting Throngs.

The Broodlord base gives more obsec, and weight of bodies at the cost of not being able to fish for Cult Ambush. The Magi build gives four bubbles of Zealot+Adamantium Will (each CAD neophyte unit gets a Doting Throng Magus for Zealot), and is cheaper but loses Obsec, and takes up 3 detachments instead of 2.

Both options give you lots of shooting potential, and decent psychic support, and both still give you a lot of leftover points to play with.

Is it actually worth eschewing the Cult Insurrection in order to just run multiple blobs of Fearless super-Guardsmen?

As odd as it may sound, it may actually be worth taking a look at "typically Imperial Guard" tactics when thinking about this.

As guard I've found that if you run enough guys, your opponent will quite simply be overwhelmed. Even if you're suffering 10-20+ casualties per turn, if you have enough guys on the table it won't really matter.

Also, I'll admit I do not know that much about GSC, but you mentioned Psychic support. Hordes of troops with Psychic support are extremely scary, as a single psyker's usefulness goes up majorly when they're casting a spell on a 30+ man unit.

Other words, probably worth a shot if you have the models.

I've been running with a bunch of subterranean uprising and a single doting throng with 5 squads of 10 and 2 flamers each.

The neophytes have done a serious amount of work! They routinely make their points back and then some. I don't know how they would work without the close combat support, but I'd love to hear about it if you try!

A side note: I just tonight, got first blood during deployment from one of those neophyte squads against a 5 man tac squad... Rolling a 5 can be rowdy!

You need to pick your army within the Cult insurrection detachment because the neophytes don't got infiltrate by themselves. With a big mob like that you need to cult ambush/infiltrate first turn and get in their face right away.
You can also add more Headquarters with a seperate CAD.

But with this kind of army you need enough psychic power to take down the enemy units that can handle your neophytes. you need the scalpel to cut away those units. This could be summoning 4x rock saw acolytes, mind control an enemy unit to shoot at their own, 4x psychic shriek or increase the strength and attacks of a neophyte unit.

So don't invest to much in shooting power if you can get that stuff for free with summoning. Everything you cannot deal with lasguns should be locked in close combat and deal with it later or simply ignore it if you win the mission anyway.

Also the shrouded is too big a benefit to turn down. The guys will always be hanging in the wind for at least one turn unless they roll a 6, so the cover is very very good. Bring a side CAD for more patriarch/primus/magus goodness and some obsec.

So in short, no. Not worth giving up the cult insurrection. But horde is very good. Running 145 bodies at 1850 and have gone 4-0 so far vs: Raven Guard, Ad Mech, Tyranids and White Scars

The Cult Detachment is where the money is.
EVERYONE gets infiltrate so you can do alot of different tricks
Plus you can add any of the formations to tailor to your taste.
The cult if built this way will give you the hoard army you're looking for.