Rate limiting can be practically strong for everyday use. Bank PINs are commonly 4 digits, though the chip+PIN system allows up to at least 6. Three attempts and the card is locked. Provided you stop users from picking obvious numbers like birthdays, it's pretty effective at preventing card fraud.

Weak passwords can be fine, provided rate limiting is extremely aggressive. You can adjust this based on access e.g. your admin account might be locked under stricter heuristics like a single attempted login outside your geographic region (Live mail does this to me sometimes). In this case the user might even have the correct password, but if something else doesn't add up then you can block.