Roger, 

You're right that white does try to squash counterplay, especially in the ...a6 Exchange Slav lines (which score better for Black than most of the other Exchange lines).  As you noted, the stronger players do try for more than mere equality which gives Black the counterchances he needs to play for a win.  

I have not found too many players below master strength who can deaden a position as White unless they know a certain forcing variation.  That particular skill seems to be reserved for those who play mostly in closed tournaments!

Having said all this, I should come clean:  I play the white side of the Chebanenko and hate it.  From White's perspective,  I don't like the c5 lines, I don't like the Exchange, I don't like "normal" developing moves that allow Black to play the Meran ideas that Chebanenko made popular.

So I may try the Catalan set-up and see if that gives me some extra points.

On the catalan line (a4 and g3) you might want to look at how Karjakin neutralised this the other day in the big supergm tourney. Also Alekseev played a decent novelty v Svidler in the Bd2 lines.

I'd say it's not bad opening for winning if white takes up the challenge and plays c5

Thanks for some great responses. I am planning to take on a6 slav. Will start with Bologan book. However, is the Flear ...a6 is still any good?

Having played the a6 Slav on and off over the past 4 years, alternating between it and the Tarrasch (my main defence to 1.d4), with excellent results against strong and mediocre players alike, I still can't escape the feeling, entirely irrational though it is, that it might not provide me with sufficient winning chances. 

My concerns are 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 a6 5. cd or 5.e3 b5 6. b3 Bg4 7. Be2/Bd2 , but I'm only fooling myself, because I know, as with many openings, that the stronger opponent will, in striving to beat me, give me opportunities for counterplay.  If they play 5.cd then I'm quite happy to show what I've gleaned from thousands of blitz games in that line, confident that I won't be ground down.  As usual, it all comes down to how well you know the opening and the resulting positions in question as to whether or not you can play to win, so to speak.  Conversely, it is very difficult for a weaker player to kill the game completely in the above lines if you know it better than they do.

 Yet despite the excellent results, I just can't shake that feeling, and too often find myself wishing I hadn't played the Tarrasch...

 The recent Morozevich - Ivanchuk game was encouraging, despite the 1-0 result, regarding the line with 5.e3 and 7.Bd2 above, as Black had his chances in a complicated middlegame.  Bologan assessed said line in his book as += and, I forget his exact words,  offering  Black little or no counterplay (forgive me, I foolishly lent that book to someone).  He offers one game (Malakhatko - Wirig?) in the notes.

I play the a6 slav mainly looking for rich blocked or semiopen positions without early exchange of queens and of course to try to win.

In every opening you choose you will find some kind of variation that is annoying for you. For me, and I imagine for many who plays this line, is this variation:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 a6 5. a4 e6 6. g3 *

This is getting popular at the elite (Aronian, Carlsen, Anand have played it as white) and as Bologan says in his book it seems in this Catalan style line the 5. a4 is more usefull for white than the 4... a6 for black. I really don't like Catalans as black with an early c6 but here there is also a6 and it's impossible to play b5 in near future!.

AFAIK, the a6 Slav is no longer the theory free opening it was a decade ago. That's why Vigus in his excellent Play the Slav suggests the Chinese Wall or Sokolov Slav, as he said he could no longer keep up with all the a6 theory. I play the French too and find Vigus' repertoire choices for the Slav suit me just fine.