I would call our 2014 bot's intake a good example of a 'hybrid' pickup. We use a roller to grip the ball, but once the ball goes through the roller the roller needs to go back up to load the ball into the shooter. We can also hold one ball inside the roller while another is loaded into the shooter, which we used during autonomous. There's a good video of the pickup sequence on our prototype robot
here.
In our case it was successful in spite of being fairly slow because there was only ever one game piece to pick up. Once our bot got the ball in the roller and off the ground, we could be driving down the field while it loaded the rest of the way. If the game were more similar to 2013 or 2012 where there were many game pieces in play at the same time, it likely wouldn't have worked out as well.
The pickup sequence is also automated, so the drivers do not need to be concerned with the multiple actuations needed to pick up a ball. I would say that that automation is essential to any complicated form of pickup mechanism to ease the load on the driver.