Don't give up! I love my pico. That being said, it's not perfect. My hand always blocks some of the image. To some extent I can change the position of my arm (or even stand on the side of the cookie rather than in front) to get a better angle. But lots of times I can't see the entire image no matter how well I position myself. I have the best success when I just add a blob of icing to the area I'm working on and then use my scribe tool to guide the icing into place. This way the piping bag is taken out of the equation and doesn't block the image.
Here is a picture of my pico setup (I didn't have any cookies so I just used a plate in the picture to give the general idea):
And here is a picture of me positioning to pipe on the "cookie":
In the image my hand is on the right side of the image. Sometimes I can see better if I pipe with my hand directly above or below the image. It can make for an awkward arm position, but I just move around until I have the best visibility. Even when the image is partially blocked, the projection still helps me to start in the right location, to keep the size of different components of the design in proportion, and to generally visualize where I'm supposed to be going.
Hope that helps a little.
