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(-) Strictly with regard to meaning, "あそこ" and "あちら" are exactly the same,
right? (of course, "あそこ" also has a slang meaning).

(-) Isn't "あちら" used more in writing? "あそこ" used in speaking?

(-) Isn't "あそこ" used in speaking because it sounds more pleasant? I am a
native English speaker, and the "soft o" sound is pleasing to my ear and can
be said very quickly. Does anyone agree, or am I crazy to say this?

(-) "あちら" would be the only appropriate option in formal conversations, right?

While I've heard "こちら" and "そちら" a lot, I've never heard "あちら". In fact, I had
to check in my dictionary to verify it is even a word. Answers to these
questions will help me decide about incorporating "あちら" into my speaking.
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question
word-choice
"あそこ" is for daily conversation? "あちら is for writing / formal speaking?
あちら and あそこ have distinctly different meanings. あちら is a direction, and あそこ is
a location. あちら can be used in places where the English translation would be
'there' rather than 'that way' (since Japanese seems to favor saying the
direction something's in over the location it's at), but that doesn't in any
way make it equivalent to あそこ.

It is true that あちら is somewhat more formal, but the informal form is the
simple contraction あっち. This is probably what you've heard more often - it
does seem that あちら is somewhat rare, but as far as I can tell this is purely
due to chance.

I don't know about 'pleasantness', that's all pretty subjective. I have no
preference between the two. (I also have no idea what a 'soft o' is - modern
linguistics rarely uses metaphorical terms like 'hard' and 'soft'. It is true
that あちら takes a tiny bit longer to say, but this is due to the fact that the
[ʨ] there ('ch' romanised) is an affricate, which takes somewhat more time to
say; but the difference is on the scale of maybe tens of milliseconds.)
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answer