If your timing is off and the weight wraps around the branch, you might still be able to use it sometimes to pull yourself over to that side by whipping your end over the wrapped line trapping it. Still wearing my lifeline i have been able to swing/pull myself across on the stuck line, work and swing back on my lifeline, using the once stuck line for rigging. This can be a little tricky and not right for every occasion, but can be worked confidentally, especially if ya don't jostle the line too much if it has a weak 'mooring'.
Another factor about steel vs. aluminum karabs; is that the weight that the aluminum keeps from you, can be used to help short tosses, so i like keeping a steel karab/throwing weight on the ends of my lines in use.
i toss around a lot perhaps; for i am very carefull on my choice of hitchpoints on the load; studying it hard, changing it many times adjusting the torquing, center of load's balance, leveraging support, sweeping arc etc. that each can present. Even playing with some constantly that have an extra legg of tension that rides on the load, sometimes in a torqued position; i believe that these are the most powerful failry horizontal load applications. So, i keep the weight on the end of the rigging line, to make these specific, strategic choices easier/cheaper to make/employ; so that i see fit to work the most positve and correct, even if it requires second guessing/ resetting. Same thing i think with using slings or a split tail; they all lend multi-dimensional, multi use/ flexability in quickly resetable packages, expanding and exercising peak strategies that are more limited by your mind than gear!
