Is It Really That Bad?

I got a question from a reader about ankle pick.
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In this video, Sensei Seth and Shintaro Higashi ranked various martial arts takedowns.
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According to their ranking, ankle pick got “F”… the worst takedown in the ranking.
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In essence, the question I got was….
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Is ankle pick really that bad because it does seem to work well for BJJ beginners?
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For BJJ with gi, I don’t think it’s bad at all. You can hang onto your opponent’s lapel/collar when you make a level change, and even if you fail, you can pull the guard to recover. You can mix it well with a fake guard pull or a collar drag.
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Off the top of my head, Gui Mendes used ankle pick effectively in his competition career. Roberto Satoshi Souza used it a lot, if I remember correctly. Oh, and the king of BJJ takedowns that is Jacaré used it, too.
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They were all high-level competitors. And it’s fair to say that ankle pick does work in high-level BJJ matches. (It may not be as cool as other spectacular takedowns, but.)
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But in a no-gi context, I think it becomes harder to do ankle pick, mostly because you can’t rely on gi.
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Or rather, you can’t be lazy about your setup in no-gi, because you will have to hand fight and get good controlling ties. That’d be a more challenging part of executing ankle pick in a no-gi context.
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And when you do an ankle pick set up without relying on your opponent’s gi, their knee is much easier to reach. (i.e. Knee pick is easier. I believe Shintaro and Seth made this point, too.)
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I don’t think ankle pick is the absolutely worst takedown ever, especially for BJJ. But there are better takedowns you could learn and use than ankle pick when it comes to no-gi.
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What are your favorite takedowns in gi and in no-gi? Or do you almost exclusively play the guard?