Rope it over? Only if I need to, although I consider it much easier and more secure than using a wedge.
I have a keen eye for tree balance, and I typically undercut the center of gravity on a tree with a deep face cut. I can easily set a rope, and I have all sorts of equipment to pull a tree if I need it. The hinge can fail, the cutter can make a mistake, too. In addition, we are usually cutting down some unhealthy compromised tree, so counting on a hinge and a wedge isn't that good a plan.
I was training a climber a week ago; we were sending down a 26" cottonwood. We had climbed and removed the branches that weighted the tree toward the fence we were obliged to miss. It was still leaning a bit to the west, and we wanted it to go to the SE. He wanted to put a rope on it and pull it over with my 9500 bobcat & winch, but I told him to just cut it down. I explained that we had a nice brisk wind in the direction we wanted it to go, and that it didn't matter if he dropped it the wrong way, so long as he missed the fence. He made a crappy face cut (not deep enough), then did a poor job on the back cut. He finished most of the back cut on the easy side, but was afraid to go around to the treacherous downhill side of the tree to make the hinge narrow enough to let the tree blow over. He was also rather reluctant to hang out on the side the tree was leaning toward, having almost cut the entire hinge off on the easy to reach uphill side.
The wind picked up a bit more, the back cut opened up a little bit, and I told him to deepen the back cut quick on the treacherous side. He did, the tree went the right direction, and all was well.
It took him too long to cut down the tree, and it was a prime candidate for the wedge technique. Too bad the dolts didn't even own a wedge so that they could use it. I also used that little lesson as an opportunity to explain to him that he really should have had a wedge on the job, too. You see, I have nothing against wedges and I insist that my crew always have at least three on every job, along with my splitting axe to drive them. In this particular case, I had hired a bunch of barely qualified hacks to help me finish a job, and they did a fine job of hacking down the trees that I needed cut down.
If the tree had gone the wrong way, it would only have been joining the several dozen other trees in the creek bottom that we had already cut down. In this particular case, I was just using my judgement to send a W leaner off to the SE with nothing more than a nice breeze. I would not have taken that chance next to something expensive.