Much as I love Akiko, I suck at playing her. Main reason why is simple: I focus too much on R&D multiaccess. Can you really blame me, though? Her ability rewards you for running R&D. Unfortunately, as soon as the Corp sees everyone's favorite Shaper clone, all the ice goes straight to R&D.
So why do I love Akiko? 1 is a good tradeoff for 3 less influence than average for a minimum of 45 (Jesminder and Lat, for example, are 45/15) and her ability. Discounting the events Push Your Luck and Rigged Results, this is the only Runner psi game, and it leads to a lot of fun combos. Psych Mike and Mind's Eye combo off of Akiko easily with multi-access. I think Akiko is best matched against horizontal decks as opposed to vertical decks; if you go broke getting past that last sleuth at 221B after fighting off a particular killbot, you'd better have a couple of desk bugs installed for the multi-access.
Akiko is fun to play with, but difficult to get right. Kit's another favorite of mine who can be piloted by a Gordian Blade, even with less influence. Smoke is part of the Stealth archetype and my preferred ID with her arsenal of stealth cards. Lat can be built around equality of numbers (Supercorridor and that damnable Khusyuk come to mind). If you can get an Akiko deck right, though, enjoy infuriating your opponent by stealing their GFIs, their Broad Daylights, their Government Takeover (if they're insane enough to run it)... The only problem I can't solve is whether or not an R&D equivalent of Sneakdoor Beta exists other than Divide and Conquer.
Fun fact: [[Government Invesigation]] increases the chance for her ability to fire by 16,66%.
— DixieSquiggleLine