Most knot tyers,...love ABoK 1244. Why don't you like ABoK 1244?
Obviously, I had succeeded to stir up things a little bid ! Great success !
First, what
most tyers do or they do not, is not
a measure of something being correct or wrong, or better or worse from something else, for many reasons. I would argue that it is not even
an indication of the value of the things they do or the things they do not ! That is why the field of knotting is full of myths, of unproven subjective beliefs and superstitions, but empty of testable theories and objective experimental facts. Why ? Because most knot tyers know and tie only the knots they had learned at a young age reading the bible, the ABoK, or listening to some knot guru, who keeps parroting the ABoK. MOST knot tyers never try to figure out other knots, or learn other knots, or test the knots they know with the knots somebody else knows.
Now, one may ask, why is this so ? The answer is simple : One can live very well with the few knots he already has learned at a young age, and manage to somehow "solve" any knotting problems he encounters with those few knots. Most of the time, the satisfaction one gets by just tying something, is far greater than the satisfaction of having it tied as it should, or as it could. The "solution" might not be the best, the optimum or the most elegant, but, most of the time, gets the job done - and if it does not, one can always just throw in another one or two tucks. NASA "solved" the problem of securing the wires of Curiosity with the same knots my son used to tie his shoelaces as a kid, before he had learned any other knot - and I am sure that
most people will never tie their shoelaces or their tie with anything else than the first knot they have learned... It does the job, and, what is also important, anything else that could also do the same job, should not do it in a sooo better way. The differences between knots are small, and sometimes even subtle, so most people feel that the additional effort to learn new knots, or test new knots, or figure out new knots, is not worth the trouble. And by this "most people" I mean " most knot tyers", too.
Let me return at the topic : Most 2-wrap hitches will do most things we want them to do, because of the two mechanisms
all wrapping-type hitches make use of : the capstan effect, and the riding turns. By making two turns around the object
any 2-wrap hitch diminishes the tensile force at the second end at a great degree, and squeezing the tail underneath one ore two riding turns, in between tensioned rope segments and the hard surface of the pole, completes the solution. So, most knot tyers will keep using any one of the many 2-wrap hitches in the ABoK - and by doing this time and again, for years, they will learn to
like them, and even to
love them, as history has taught us about what humans are able to do...
I will not say why I do not "love" : ABoK#1244 or Pile hitch
. However, I do "like" them, as I like any other 2-wrap hitch, because they are such marvellous little rope mechanisms - as most hitches are. Some of them are tighter than the others, and some are prettier than the others, but, essentially,
most of them work, and work in the same way. Some can be tied in the bight and some can not, but this is a feature that we will probably need very rarely. Also, we must not forget that ALL knots can be tied in the bight, with a doubled line !
With a one- or two-wraps hitch, doubling the line is not a big deal. Also, it should be mentioned that even if the non-slipped version of a 2-wrap hitch is not a TIB knot, its slipped version might become TIB.
Let me show which are the 2-wraps hitches included in my 2-wrap hitch file, that I do "love"
( alongside the Strangle and the Constrictor ). If somebody persuades me, with reasonable theoretical arguments and experimental indications ( at least, if not data ) that there is another 2-wrap hitch which is more secure, more tight, more easy to remember, more easy to tie, more easy to untie, and/or more elegant than any of these, I will include this hitch in my file at once, I will throw out of my heart / forget the hitches that I used to love till now, and I will fall in love with the new acquaintances.
It is the love of knots that brought us here. 
