Grapling is considered superior by some, mainly because grapplers do well in fights like K1 and UFC. But the thing is, that there are rules against most techniques other than grapling there, so that's not strange... Sure, you're allowed to kick, punch and elbow your opponent. But no shots to the sack(
) and no attacking the eyes for example...
Submission is stupid in a real fight, because there might be others interfering with the fight (friends of the attacker ie). If you get down, get up as fast as possible, or else you might get hurt bad.
In a real fight there might also be consealed weapons, not so consealed weapons (chairs for example), walls and such.
Aikido has no groundfight techniques. But Aikido is not claiming to be a complete selfdefence art either...
/Patrik