I agree it's possible to do better than forward path tracing, but a big part of why nearly everyone switched to it was that it significantly reduces artist time, is a lot less painful and requires fewer hacks than the methods used before it.
The state of the art keeps improving but I've never heard any call the switch to forward path tracing a painful disaster, quite the opposite.
The state of the art keeps improving but I've never heard any call the switch to forward path tracing a painful disaster, quite the opposite.