There is no such thing as a 'pick'... period. If you make the choice to engage one on one you cannot 'assume' its safe to ignore everything outside of your little private fight because it never is. 'Dumb' would be assuming it is.
While I totally agree with you, I disagree that there is no "pick"
"Picking" is just short for cherry picking. To reach out and pluck the juicy cherry and leave the leaves and branches.
Basically it's the easiest, most skill-less kinda engagement you can do in AH and still call it combat.
Some P51 comes into a field at 15k and everybody already there is below 5. He continues to make single lame-o passes and zoom back to 15k or out of icon range before coming back. This happened the last time I was in the MA, by the way. He's doing nothing other than looking for the cherry to pick (i.e. he's no interested in doing that pilot "crap", or he'd seriously engage, he just wants the instant gratification of shooting something that's unaware). That's a cherry picker. Doesn't mean the other cons were engaged, he's just looking for the no-skill numbers to pad his "name in lights".