If you can't consistently beat the ghost playing BIH, there's no reason other than unfounded arrogance to consider anything tougher.
Hell, until you can do the same with a 6 ball ghost, I wouldn't recommend playing the 9 ball.
Screwing up harder stuff doesn't make you better...
Again, I only give one chance to have a civil, respectful conversation.
I see what you are saying here, that reinforcing failure is not a good method of practice. However, I'm a believer in building patterns that are useful for the future. In reality, nine ball is a very commonly played game in competitive pool. When one sees a nine ball diamond, and is in the breaking position in competition, I feel that it is best to have practiced what you need to do in that competition, which is to break, make at least one ball, get a good spread of balls on the table, and get position on the next ball in sequence. And of course, to keep the ball on the table on the break, and not scratch.
One could consider success in my modified version as being increasing one's score against the ghost over time.
For running out balls, I have a separate practice method for that, which is to start with 4 or 5 balls, spread them randomly on the table, each at a minimum having a pocket to go in, not moving them otherwise until after the random spread, then running out, 4, 5, or whatever twice in a row. Keeping trying until I run that number of balls twice in a row, then going to the next higher number.
