I just mean that picking an ordering over options is harder than picking a preferred subset of those options

The reverse is true. Picking a subset is hard. For each of the candidates you have to consider whether the less preferred option that you predict has more potential is worth selecting despite the fact that it reduces the chances of your most preferred options. The same difficulty as with picking a single vote for a preferred candidate except multiplied and with much more challenge in second guessing the rest of the voters. Picking rankings completely removes that problem. Then, for any pairing that you don't have a clear preference ordering for you can put down randomly or arbitrarily and lose nothing.