Why no branch predictor at all? Even a brain-dead one that predicts all branches always/never taken is going to provide some benefit, it's not as if the processor can do anything else while it's waiting.

Or am I missing something?

I note the hazard 3 on the pi Pico rp2350 only predicts a branch if it's the last branch and was taken, ie a single loop. Which seems weird to me, so I'm probably lacking understanding somewhere.