Underestimating targeted criticals

Why does everyone do this? In every walkthrough or strategy guide I've ever seen they always devalue targeting for rate of fire, and weapon skill for luck.

Your critical rate isn't just that base rate shown in the character sheet. That amount is raised by your weapon skill, and targeting raises that chance even more, and both weapon skill and targeting boosts up the quality of those criticals, too. Many think there's no difference over 150% of a skill, since the increases in accuracy diminish, but when you reach the 200-250% range, you're dealing incapacitating crits so reliably that you can effectively eliminate two targets a round with a 10mm pistol, no matter how much armor they're wearing.

Your weapon type will also make a huge difference in critical rate and intensity. While the big guns may always deal the straight damage, they score crits more rarely, and your opponents will often have HPs left over to return fire without penalty. Unassisted HtH attacks will always get the best rate, and quite often I've run through knocking all opponents unconscious and letting the rest of the team clean up with ease. For a challenge and a hoot I played a jinxed char with thrown weapons, and even throwing rocks at 150% I was able to blind or disarm opponents, who would respond by embarrassing themselves with critical misses.

High skill and attack type can make crit percentage from the luck bonus, and the whole sniper perk, trivial. Better criticals is always appreciated for one-shot takedowns. The finesse trait gives you a whopping 20% at the cost of damage, but while it may take you longer to get the actual kill, you are perfectly safe shooting your blinded or unconscious target like fish in a barrel, and that's when and if you don't score an instant kill anyway..