This thread piqued my interest because I have a love/hate relationship with sleep deprivation that touches on what you mentioned:

- On the positive side of the scale, sleep deprivation can boost my creativity and ability to focus enormously, every now and then (context: as a programmer).

- On the negative side of the scale, I would be fooling myself if I pretended that this doesn't make me more irritable in the days after.

Over the years I'm slowly but surely learning how to balance these things against each other and pick suitable moments for these creative outbursts without overdoing it :-).

Yep, I have noticed this myself. I am much more likely to get into fights when sleep deprived. I have less patience with people.