It's not that cut and dry, plinking too late does nothing. A p-link acts to queue the doubled input and push it out on the first available frame. It adds about a frame, if p-linked early. So its not a 1f link on the front and back , so to speak, its 1f of leniency on the pre-frame, but the nature of p-linking make it a skill in and of itself, requiring relatively precise timing on the button presses, as well as not being able to plink jabs without controller modification (you can plink any button with Select).
Plinking doesn't even really give you a full frame of leniency either, as it its a queuing mechanic. I know on most characters, when it comes to 1f links, plinking is on/off. I find it only slightly more consistent on, say, Abel's step kick x FP x CoD opening, than just hitting the button. (I tested, out of 100 attempts I hit it 71 times 'honest' and an even 80 plinking). Where-as plinking easier links like Yun's cr.MP x cr.MP x St.MP x lunge/upkick seems to be a lot more consistent.
What the issue with 1f links seems to be, is that if you plink on the pre-frame its fine. If you plink on the latter half of the frame preceding the pre-frame, it works as well,but if you plink late ON the frame, ie the exact timing that just hitting the button normally would have worked, its hit or miss. Sometimes the queue system delays and spits it out next frame and you miss, in essence, you aren't really gaining an entire extra frame, but about 2/3rds of one, but introducing another variable for failure, in the plink itself.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the spirit of your argument is wrong, because its not, plinking DOES make it easier, but its still ridiculously hard.
Sorry, Im not.trying to start a pissing contest between games or anything, I just saw some remarks about 3f links and , from someone who co-mains Yang, I had to respond lol.
My execution in MKx is NOTHING special, but I haven't really found anything I can land with at least moderate consistency after 30m or so practice. Like LKs f44 fbrv f44, I'm not gonna be busting that out online, but after reading about it, I.labbed.for 10m and was hitting it 2/10. That's obviously terrible, but that's with 10m of practice and I don't play LK at all, beyond the worst Flame Fist the world has ever known.
I personally think cancels are tedious and unnecessary.