To be quite honest, I do use speech tags too, though none quite so exaggerated as in my example. It's just bad when they keep coming up, like the person is trying to whack us with a thesaurus.

And yeah, about repetition. That's why I mentioned that nouns are far more forgivable; it's hard to not reuse them. Frankly, synonyms are all well and good, but once someone makes best friends with the thesaurus it's time to stage intervention. Not that a thesaurus is a bad tool, it can be lovely, but only with a light touch. Simplicity is really best in most cases, anyway. This is another one of those you-have-the-sense-or-you-don't sort of things, I think.