I sure see a lot of people extolling the virtues of a tanto for "piercing". Tantos aren't inherently better or worse at piercing than other blade shapes, as it all depends on the specifics of the knife design and blade grind. Some tantos, like as cold steel does them, are worse at piercing tasks (ie. require more effort to pierce) than blade designs like Cold Steel's own spear or clip point blades. Those tantos are optimized for tip strength, not for piercing. Other tantos, like some seen in this thread, are very thin at the top and have little in the way of reinforcement; these might be very good at penetrating but are generally less robust.
I like tantos a lot when they're smartly done. I like having a reasonably robust tip (the thing that's most likely to break) combined with a very thin, hollow-ground primary edge (where I do most of my cutting tasks). I also like having that secondary tip for general EDC use.