Was reliability actually more important than having the most destructive weapon on Robot Wars?

As a kid I definitely thought the robot with the nastiest-looking weapon was automatically the one to fear. Watching old battles now, I've almost gone the other way. A spectacular weapon isn't much use when the robot can't self right, gets stuck somewhere ridiculous or stops moving halfway through the fight. There's something weirdly impressive about the less flashy machines that could just keep going no matter what happened to them.

If you were building one purely to win rather than entertain, would you prioritise damage or build something incredibly difficult to kill?