I generally use James Bond as my yardstick for cool. He trained as a ninja and got tons of hot asian chicks to fall at his feet the whole time. There are also the turtle variety of ninjas, which I have a fondness for ...along with pizza.
While ninjas are known for being sneak-about bastards, it is important to understand that the first ninjas were villagers and farmers defending themselves and their families against well-armed samurai attackers. Many of the ninja's weapons resemble Japanese gardening tools for that very reason. They didn't have the numbers and weapons to take on the samurai hordes in a frontal attack, so they used stealth and guerilla tactics to fight.
I think you're forgetting some of the "walk the plank" character traits of pirates in favor of some ersatz kidnapping fantasy, Carol.
