I think perhaps the best argument going forward is if ratios are sufficient for your story even with the labeling obscured (it just adds noise). Here, the ambiguity of the ordering on a pie chart might provide exactly the right vehicle.
The use case you describe is actually quite common. If I have eight products and want to see at a glance which are contributing the most to my bottom line, a pie chart is perfect. The two conditions are met:
1) I'm looking at a meaningful total (all of my products)
2) I'm only interested in the ratios among them
To clarify, showing ratios is fine in a pie chart as long as the pie represents a meaningful total. If I just showed my top 3 products rather than all of them (or at least all of them in some explicit category), then using a pie chart would be inappropriate because there is no meaningful total; a bar chart or table would better in that case.
I still respectfully disagree that there is almost any purpose at all for using a pie chart. We're just, as humans, not terribly good at making visual comparisons on angular scales.
The use case you describe is actually quite common. If I have eight products and want to see at a glance which are contributing the most to my bottom line, a pie chart is perfect. The two conditions are met:
1) I'm looking at a meaningful total (all of my products)
2) I'm only interested in the ratios among them
To clarify, showing ratios is fine in a pie chart as long as the pie represents a meaningful total. If I just showed my top 3 products rather than all of them (or at least all of them in some explicit category), then using a pie chart would be inappropriate because there is no meaningful total; a bar chart or table would better in that case.