I can see how branch hints are useful, but in practice isn't the sign of the distance to the branch target the implicit hint? If the predictor doesn't have any other information it assumes that backwards branches are taken and forward branches are not. So, you can imagine how the compiler would rearrange the program to align with that implication, where possible.

One of the things that the BOLT post-link optimizer does is rearrange basic blocks to reduce taken forward branches, based on the profiles.