Lubricating manually I would tend to agree with you, but with an autolube system things are a little different. Also you need a grease with the correct base oil viscosity .............. that's what makes the difference in my experience. One grease we use is a manufactured using a base stock of ISO 220VG viscosity. It's actually rated NLGI #0 but it pumps beautifully and sticks to pins like a sticky thing ........ having an 800kg 4-ball weld number doesn't hurt either.
Also for Lincoln autolube systems an NLGI #2 grease can occasionally cause the injectors not to reset properly because the grease doesn't flow back through the vent valve freely enough when the pump shuts off, thus leading to pins getting under-greased. I've had quite a few instances of that, even in tropical ambient temperatures. This is especially true on loaders where grease cycle intervals can be as close as every 5 minutes. If you have a maximum pump running time of 90 seconds per cycle that only leaves you 3-1/2 minutes after the pump stops for all the injectors to reset. However the benefit of an autolube system is that your pins get fresh grease very frequently. Actually what you want to happens is that the grease moves through the joint on a regular basis and takes all the cack like dirt, water, etc, with it as it leaves the joint and falls to the ground, thus keeping the joint clean internally.
Greasing manually once or twice a shift I would agree with you and use an NLGI #2 in my sort of climatic conditions. In actual fact our lube truck is equipped with NLGI #2 for manually lubricating things like graders, dozer rippers and smaller excavators.
On this particular job site I've been running 3 x Cat 994's & 2 x Hitachi EX3600's for the past 3 years and we have had a sum total of 1 pin failure on all 5 machines in that time. The case for the prosecution rests m'lud .........
JHESL. We're using either Bel-Ray Molylube SP-4-220-0 (synthetic-based, actually an NLGI #0) or Cat Ultra 5 Moly (mineral oil-based). They are both extremely good and I would recommend either one.
Other greases I've been around in the past that worked well were Exxon Super Moly & Petro-Plate M5/800. I have also got good reports of Conoco Omnigard XD5 but no personal experience of it.