Slann Astro Priest Skink Skink Guard Guard 8 sallies Still fits, still very good. Calling 6 sallies unreliable is questionable imo. It's a dice game and occasionally that spikes against you. But their profile is not at all what id consider unreliable. Or "not meaningful" damage. No one was saying things like that when sallies coated 120 lol. Their cost going up doesn't make their damage any more or less meaningful.
when sallies went from 3 to 2 max people were saying it. if you go back to the lizard wizard podcast for 3.0 they talk about how much that changed affected damage output. how you had to get both shots and charges in order to do the damage you need to finish units off. it hasnt changed since then. its just that everyone jumped on thunderlizard so no one had been playing dt to talk about it. 12 shots to 8 shots and 9 melee to 6 melee really hurt that unit.
Considering the results and prevalence of the unit I can't help but feel it wasnt a totally accurate take then and it still isn't.