Tiny fight list - jerk move or smart move ? (in General)

IMO, I would have to say both, sadly.
The current gameplay encourages you to be a jerk if you want to play competitively.

I only use the top half of my fight list, at most. The rest are backups in case I need a quick run through my BA, or I lose somebody at the top end. This means I only target up to about five people per day, or less depending on the reward disparity. And I aggressively farm anyone giving a much higher bonus if they are fighting.

I'm perfectly ok with doing this, and I don't care if it's seen by some as a jerk move.

Oh please! I think it's more of a jerk move to call some one a jerk for playing competitively.

Jamool hits me for 300 fights a day. Good for him, I am a good juicy target for him and will help him finish strong. It takes a LONG time to get through that much BA.

Touched any nerves there ? :P
I wasn't singling out anybody.

You can't deny the fact that if somebody has, say, a single-person fight list, the target's only possible defense strategy is to try to change his strategy around so the other party can no longer consistently beat him.
Since very little people can NOT be successfully attacked by quite a few other people, it stands to reason that if even just ONE, let alone two of those people that CAN attack him would keep him on a one-man attack list, that would bring ANYBODY in the negatives, clan-score-wise, since the maximum amount of CP you can earn per day is limited, but the number of times you can BE attacked per day is not.
And that, no matter how you put it, _is_ at least somewhat of a jerk move, REGARDLESS of the fact that it's not against any rules while also being advantageous for the time-rich attacker.

What would happen if EVERYBODY started fighting just the HIGHEST reward target they could beat, huh ?
Tell me again how that would NOT be even the slightest bit of a jerk move.

TD;DR just because something is not illegal or even expected for competitive play doesn't automatically exempt it from being a bit jerk-ish.

Meh I have a much bigger fight list now, but I typically only try to fight the top half of it unless I need to burn through my BA really quick. I honestly don't really see a problem with it, fighting with a small list itself is a very time consuming task and its done to help maximize growth, and I totally get that cause I did it for the first 4 months of my run.

Also some teams, with certain strats only have so many targets they can actually beat towards the top. So it only makes sense that some of them would have much smaller fight lists.

Honestly its just something that happens, and I don't knock anyone for doing it.

That was at least half my point - the gameplay encourages you to di it, IF you have the time, there's no other drawback for you, but a lot of advantages both in the short and long run.