@phishrace: Your post contains a non sequitur. Everything after the first paragraph has nothing to do with the software design of the flipper skill shot on GB, which I agree is excellent.
If the plunger lane/switches were designed so that the best plunge to the flippers was the (pretty clean) feed around the back to the left flipper instead of the current short-plunge, is the game better or worse? In my opinion, it’s better: the player has to catch a faster-moving ball, and we all don’t have to try the plunge half-a-dozen times. It also rewards players who can get the same feed every time without resorting to a full plunge, which is skillful.
I’m not saying that plunging until you get the nice short-plunge feed is a bad play, or that the option to do something more clever isn’t a good thing for good players to know. It’s just that this particular clever thing isn’t good game design: it’s not hard, and it’s not interesting. Most players won’t do it because it’s not fun.
My all time bugbear on this front is Whitewater. The obvious thing to do is a disaster, and the correct thing to do seems to be awfully tedious. I wish a too-short plunge was penalized: if I were putting on in a tournament I’d be tempted to Belsito the shooter rails in some way.