Maybe a tac melta but a tac melta is also better at AI than a rokkit unless you catch an enemy by surprise. MM still better than a rokkit. Plus you know...it actually hits when you shoot at a moving target. Rokkits aren't FAST enough to hit their target. Accuracy was never the issue tbh. We can compensate for accuracy however I can't magically make rokkits travel faster and hit a target.

Alright, I personally love the rokkits, and orks are my best faction for xp gain.

Cons for Rokkit
-Charge time can make it difficult to get shots off while actively being attacked.
-Flight path is wonky.
-Projectile speed.
-AoE damage is slightly less than enemy health usually (let's see what happens with that...)

Pros
-Charge up burst damage makes it a powerful ambush weapon.
-Projectile speed and flight path are tolerable. At double melta range you'll always hit armour and can probably hit infantry, and I'm fairly confident at shooting vehicles from past that. You can in fact hit the broadside of a rhino.
-A direct hit is still an infantry kill, and AoE hits are easy to mop up with pistols.
-Range is not hard capped.

The short comparison: The meltagun is more reliable in its results (against both armour and infantry), but the rokkit is more threatening.

My real example list of why I prefer the rokkit over the meltagun.
-You cannot chase vehicles down (like Eldar/MoS CSM can) or snare them (LSM). But your range isn't hard capped. I've made those final shots at range to get the armour kill.

-Same thing for no hard capped range, you can shoot from better defensive positions at vehicles. Maybe you won't hit every 5th shot, but you can still plink away and make the kill without exposing yourself/suicidally charging forward.

-Ambush potential. Play smart, stay on the flanks, get the drop on your opponent. A charge-up time is negated when you surprise them.

-You have a pistol for close range. Everyone except Eldar (and even they can do things) has a serviceable pistol, and Orks doubly so. While the melta and pistol overlap, the rokkit and pistol complement each other. Learn to finish off opponents with pistols, learn when to default to your pistol for kills, don't be afraid to melee.

So yeah, the range and ambush potential of the rokkit backed up by the pistol makes it my favourite AT class (plus super stikkbomb), in part because I can still rock the infantry/capture side of things. I also like the kannon deffgun. It's not quite as good for sniping like the zzap/lascannon, but more reliable up close. I use it for fortress maps to clean up vehicles and camped groups of enemies, no other faction has weapons as versatile. It reminds me of the early plasma weapons when they were good for AP and AT.

The screams, though.

Same thing with meltas and fusion guns, by the way. You catch people, you apply the right amount of heat, you dodge spam for inv. frames while your opponent is burning alive. Then you teabag them to establish yourself as a dominant male.

So many tears.... just flank a group of corner campers with the rokkit, instakill a group of 4 including a vet. So many tears. Almost worth the 7 teamkills a match. Almost.

Negative on that ghost rider, what you've described is the general advantage of surprising and flanking an enemy. Ambush potential works into that. Lazy line graph time.

And then shunt the reacting time a little to the right to represent reaction/turn speed.

Ramblings you can ignore.
By using a charge-up weapon with high burst damage, you delay the moment of awareness and the opponent's return fire. Ranged firefights can be thought of as a DPS race. In a straight shoot-up both opponents usually start with the need to react and aim, but when you ambush and flank an enemy, you delay their DPS start by the time it takes for them to react, turn, and aim. However, charge up effects are balanced around straight shoot-ups, so their cumulative advantage to ambushing is increased, as seen above by the opponent's reactionary return fire. You can see in the second graph I've represented a plasmagun leading with a charged up shot, followed by auto-fire. It's a fun weapon when you get a handle on that.

This was I think part of the problem for the plasma cannon, and still is part of the problem for the autocannon. Being balanced around straight shoot-ups, the ambush potential of the charge/spool-up for both weapons makes them very deadly, and their propensity as heavy weapons to shoot into the fray from range makes them very capable at ambushing. That's why people feel so disadvantaged against them, because reacting to them is a very small window.