Pushing your buttons a bit, J.
You wholeheartedly agreed with the member, and you have not seen what he is doing or know how qualified he is to make his judgement. Can I sell you a nice (whatever it is you want); I've got one sitting right here . . .It's perfect for you, sight unseen. Trust me.
Regarding the original poster, techniques that he cannot imagine being useful could be quite useful in the right context if done well. Yes, it takes time, but sometimes that's a good thing.
Is the person expecting to need it for self defense tonight? (Why) Next week? (Again, why?) Realistically, ever?
Need fast, serious self defense? Buy a handgun and train with it. Seriously. If you need that, I'd venture to say you've got other life matters to address (where you live, where you hang out, who you hang with) that you should be spending time on.
Is one's training more oriented toward walking away from a fight or being tempted to "try what I know, since I am trained?" Sometimes too much confidence and ability too quickly is not so good.
In general, I agree with some of the sentiments expressed about interests, time and practicality. However, it all depends on expectations and needs, purposes and personality. It sounds like the original poster was looking for something else and that's fine.
People looking for some sort of overall personal development and carry-over self defense training can do well in many traditional arts and learn some very useful self defense that will work very well with the unaware, random attacker if need be. That's the usual attacker; they assume you are a victim. It's nice to surprise those types, and some of the Hapkido can work very well for those purposes.
MMA training certainly can be very useful and practical, but still is limited in some ways. First,the sport orientation of much of the training also overlooks some of the most effective self defense aspects: groin, eyes, throat. In my "traditional" art, coming from some military background as it does, our Hapkido is a very brutal form of hand to hand techniques. Looks more navy seal than flowery Hapkido. Even that might not get taught in some MMA school, particularly if they are ring oriented. Also, in MMA, IMO, there can be a bit of the jack of all trades and master of none phenomenon.
I've also trained and been promoted in (2nd dan) some traditional Hapkido. I could use some of that stuff very well for self defense. Granted, I promoted within Hapkido while I'd already had eight or nine years of taekwondo, which included the battlefield Hapkido, under my belt. But, then, maybe I know what I'm talking about more than somebody who's been studying the Hapkido six whole month.
As far as practical self defense against trained fighters, MMA, boxers, street, or otherwise: 1) they hopefully aren't picking fights anyway and, if they do and are that capable then 2) that's why one carries the handgun.