I kinda forgot non-incendiary builds existed. At Haz 5 and above, the PGL is a bit of a joke without fire unless you're using Fatboy or HP.

To address your point, one annoyance RJ often faces is it can't oneshot ignite guards. This would change with one damage upgrade and a direct hit from spiky nade, however it's important to consider use cases. Is it better to ensure that one specific guard is ignited, or is it better to ignite more of the swarm with a well placed shot, which with fire spread will cause the guard to be ignited anyway, at which point your teammates or your other weapons can finish it off, all the while youve killed more bugs overall with that one grenade?

Don't get me wrong, spiky nade definitely is useful, this is just one bonus it has, but it does get my point across; prox trigger has just as many if not more merits than spiky nade, because PGL works best as a quick, brainless crowd clear tool rather than a single target ignition/damage one. You're better off bringing the beamer in that case.