2 questions:
been having fun with hugo (3s) and mvc1 gief recently, but i’m always left wondering why there are so few (pure) grapplers and they always end up being low tier.
zangief in alpha 2 is great. o. hawk in ST (not HDR) is not good but fun to play if you get his throw loop down.
marstorious in fhd. (first that comes to mind).
kira in arcana heart.
It’s not that grapplers are bad in other games, you just aren’t playing them right.
Tier lists don’t mean much. Don’t believe them.
ST is a great choice. You’ve got Zangief, T.Hawk, O.Hawk, Honda, and O.Honda that are all competitive (even O.Zangief can be competitive). So that’s five competitive grapplers right there. N.Ken can even be played as a hybrid shoto-grappler (knee-bash!) if you’re into that sort of thing. And you can even try to play a throw centric style with Boxer by using his hold as your main offensive weapon.
If you’re willing to look outside of SF, KOF ‘98 is basically 2D grapplers’ paradise.
Daimon and O. Yashiro are both beast, Clark is good, Ralf is essentially a grappler (in that there’s not much he really ought to combo besides backbreaker and supers), Vice is good, Shermie is good, Blue Mary is good…and a huge chunk of the cast more or less has a command throw with their “proximity unblockables” (weird auto-combo moves that aren’t technically throws in that some of their hits can whiff if they connect weirdly, but otherwise they’re unblockable and serve much the same combo/offensive role as command throws). Andy, Ryo, Robert, Heavy D!, Kensou, O. Chris, and Shingo (I’m sure I forgot somebody) all have a move like that.
SS64, SSAZ, SS5sp have top tier grapplers
Zangief’s a lot of fun in Street Fighter II, Hyperfighting and up. Seems like the EX games have good grapplers, too, but I can’t remember for sure.
Haha
KoF might not fit the OPs cup of tea since they’re looking for “pure” grapplers and most of the “grappler” characters in KoF aren’t really pure grapplers per se. At least not in the same form as "Gief or Hugo from SF.
VS. series Zangief 
potemkin is A tier in GGAC
Grapplers in KOF are way more complex than grapplers in street fighter
KOF has the best grapplers ever
Condor from Breakers Revenge is pretty darn good. I’ll add Tizoc from MOTW as fun grappler to use.
Play Virtua Fighter
I don’t really see how KoF doesn’t fit for pure grapplers. Granted I will admit there are lots of characters that aren’t grapplers but rather just happen to have a good command grab such as Blue Mary, Vice and a few others. Those kinds of characters you could play without even touching the command grab and can still have some success.
However characters like Daimon fit the bill pretty well and lets not forget the KoF poster child for grapplers Clark who, in some particular reiterations, have like five different command grabs for various situations. Plus he’s top tier in certain games like 98’ and XI.
What have you been smoking?
How are you doing that with Vice when she is pretty much grapples with the exceptions of the kicks & Tackle Which can be followed up with a throw.
They are the “best grapplers” because they don’t play like “grapplers” at all. They don’t have bulky movement(instead they got the same hops with good normals like the rest of the cast), they don’t have a huge-ass hitbox that bothers them while trying to get in, and they can connect the throws in combos just like regular specials. They are more like ST ken- normal characters with a strong command throw.
Because as Seth Killian mentioned once, being extreme characters by design makes them very hard to balance. Either they turn out too bad, or too good. That’s why the developers handle them with caution and make them closer to the weak side, so they won’t risk the whole game.
Personally I don’t count her tackle follow up or her Decide whip move as grapples, the first being just a follow up that can’t be done by itself (until XIII anyway) and the other is blockable. So using just those moves along with the aforementioned kicks and tackle you’d do okay, granted not nearly as effectively. The command grabs, imo, serves to help her mix-up game tremendously but I don’t think its like the as central to her game play as someone like Clark but yeah you are probably right, it isn’t exactly the best example.