Something that I'm trying to work on: use your clock time. If you're in endgame and have time left, try to use it to read sente and points. All the practice in the world won't help you if you just play endgame blitz. So I'm trying to actually make use of leftover time reading sente values in endgame, because that seems to be the best thing to practice. If I lose by a small amount and have lots of time left, I probably should have spent more time on endgame analysis.

The endgame is fighting strength.

Sente is very important in the endgame, but there are at least a couple of other tricky aspects:
1.) Is your sente really sente? Even though a move appears to be sente, you can evaluate the value of the board position if the opponent ignores the move. A sente move is only sente at certain times. It depends on the other things on the board.

2.) What is really tricky is figuring out when you should play the reverse-sente moves. Your opponent can supposedly play these moves in sente when he wants to. But when is it more useful to play them first yourself?

There is a lot of complication in trying to play things optimally, but I think that the endgame theory that was written up on SL is a great place to start. Still, though, as you've pointed out, sente moves are probably the most important in general.

why gote is preferred to reverse sente?

I think relying on proverbs to help your endgame is a bad idea. There is simply no substitute to solving endgame tesuji problems and applying the tactics you learn from those problems into your games.

then the opponent takes his sente, for no gain.

I don't understand this. If the opponent has no gain from a sente move, was it really sente then?

For instance, suppose that the last two plays are a gote that gains 1 point and a reverses sente that gains 1 point.

In general, to get the last play at the level of the plays,

For instance, suppose that the last two plays are a gote that gains 1 point and a reverses sente that gains 1 point. If you take the reverse sente, you gain 1 point, but then the opponent takes the gote to gain 1 point, as well. Net result: 0. But if you take the gote, you gain 1 point, and then the opponent takes his sente, for no gain. Net result: 1 point for you. Note that in the second line of play you get the last play (the reply to the sente).

In general, to get the last play at the level of the plays,

For instance, suppose that the last two plays are a gote that gains 1 point and a reverses sente that gains 1 point. If you take the reverse sente, you gain 1 point, but then the opponent takes the gote to gain 1 point, as well. Net result: 0. But if you take the gote, you gain 1 point, and then the opponent takes his sente, for no gain. Net result: 1 point for you. Note that in the second line of play you get the last play (the reply to the sente).

I'm sorry, I still don't understand. If black can choose a 1 point gote or a 1 point reverse sente, I do not see how gote could be better.

Case 1: If black takes the gote, he gets a point, white gets a point for the move that is his sente, then black blocks. It's 1-1 and white's turn.

Case 2: If black takes the reverse sente, and white takes the gote, it's 1-1 and black's turn.

The only difference that I see is that in case one, black agrees to let white keep sente when white plays the sente move. Would you please explain this a bit more? The only situation in which I can see case 1 be better is in rules like AGA rules, and then only if this would cause white to have to pass first.

If the opponent has no gain from a sente move, was it really sente then?

I'm trying to understand this.

Let's say we modify the situation a bit and say that there are two gote plays left and two reverse sente plays left, all equally valuable.

It seems to me that if you play gote in this situation, your opponent will play the two sente plays and then the last gote play, but if you play reverse sente, your opponent will play sente, then gote, leaving you to get the last gote play. So, we should play reverse sente to get 2/4 of the available points instead of 1/4. Is my thinking wrong somewhere here, or is this a situation where the guideline is inverted? And in that case, what's so exceptional about the above situation that the guideline is still a good guideline?

Edit: here's an illustration of how I imagine this situation, possibly clarifying where I'm confused.