A few comments here. First of all there are roughly 5000 different martial arts in the world. Any of them can be used to attack or defend. Discussing relative merits is near pointless as every art has positives and negatives. For instance Aikido was developed because Master Ueyshiba saw the weaknesses of Jiu Jitsu against multiple attackers. That does not negate Jiu Jitsu as a devastating art against single attackers.

I have read about old masters of Ba Kua in the late 1800s who focused on one technique only. One of them only used a forward punch. He could throw it from any angle - standing, crouching or sitting and he was never defeated.

Bill Wallace, the former middleweight full contact champ in the late Sixties and Seventies was called Thunderfoot. He had a devastatingly fast and powerful side kick and used it to defeat opponent after opponent. He admitted he had become dependent on it, but he remained champion until he retired.

Shotokan was originally based on the tiger style of Shaolin kung fu, or chuan fa as it what called centuries ago. Originally, Shotokan was a devastatingly hard combat art of powerful defense with ferocious counter attacks, but when the Japanese reembraced their roots in the 1930s and began studying martial arts in earnest, mainstream Shotokan was simplified and partially toned down to appeal to a large, varied group of students. They had to teach the millions who took it up.

There are still Shotokan Tiger styles that mirror the original tiger style they learned from Okinawa Kempo masters, who learned their arts directly from the Shaolin monk who taught their founders on Okinawa in the mid 1550s.

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