Yeah, I should probably nix that from my list, since it's not really a "bad phrase" that you can mass remove. But usually (but not always) it can be replaced with like. It also has a tiny hint of loftiness to it, like using "as well as" instead of "and."
"Like" and "as if" are both used to construct similes, which are a legitimate writing tool, though like anything else, they should be used to create a desired effect (which can be characterization as well as description).
The rule (as I remember it) is that you use "as if" when you have an subject-verb combo following, and like if there's no verb. And "as if" creates a subjunctive mood (hence the "were," though that's something you don't see used so often anymore).
She stared, as if she were a cat.
vs
She stared like a cat.
Sometimes it's not so easy to swap out the "as if" for a "like," though.
She stared, as if he'd just said the most offensive thing in the history of civilization.
Use of "like" in the latter sentence would be very informal, and would technically be non grammatical. Whether it fits really depends on the feel you're shooting for, I think, and maybe even the pov character. One of my betas is British and he points out my use of like instead of "as if" (I do it deliberately with one pov character in particular) in this way each time it pops up. He insists that it's jarring, though of course he grew up immersed in a different vernacular than I did (I'm a produce of 80s-era southern CA, where everything was like, wow).
One category of word that can get overused, imo, are those little "gesticular" words that are used to attribute dialog or insert beats or provide context. Things like shrugged, nodded, grinned, frowned and so on. I actually blogged about this a while back, because I discovered (upon counting some words in my manuscript) that I used some of them too often. But then I did word searches in a number of novels I'd read recently and discovered that published writers tend to do this a lot too. I found dozens, even hundreds, of shrugs, frowns and nods etc. in some writers' work, including some who are critically acclaimed and popular. And every writer I checked had at least a couple of "those" words.
My conclusion is that you should be mindful but not obsessive about these things. If you get hung up on fixing every little "tic" you discover about your writing, you may well purge it (and your characters) of their personality and voice. And of course, you won't ever finish the thing either, which is a serious problem I have.