I had recently been certified as a Control & Defence and Improvised Weapons Instructor with Jim Wagner's Reality Based Personal Protection System.
http://www.jimwagnertraining.com/
The courses which were two days, one 10 day each, were intense fast and simple. It's effective, and I will attest that after having roughly 10years of traditional martial arts background, this system is truly a revolution. Jim's techniques are collected from all over the world, and he's instructed many SWAT, Ranger, USMC Sniper and GSG9 units, and many others, and is repeatedly used by all of their respective governments.
Any technique is only as good as the operator who employs it. You can be an encyclopedia of moves, locks and kicks, but if you don't know how to employ them properly, you're down for the count. Physical fitness, agility, and other factors all come into play. Being good at one simple technique and being able to deploy it fast, accurate and smoothly, will save you more then fancy handwork (which I've learned) of traditional martial arts.
In the end, the preference is on the learner. However, if you want a proven system that works, look into the one I'm in now. Sports martial artists will often lose in a fight because they have no will to do actual harm and will stop as soon as they make contact.
The difference between some of us and the casual sport martial artists are that we have to survive when we deploy this. We're willing to do what's necessary. The question now is, are YOU?