This pretty much sums it up though I disagree they're useless. The biggest difference is the meta. Pre 3.0 we faced the same problems if our/opposing teams compositions are the way they are now. If your teams full of ranged and sins you're the only visible target that's in the enemies lines at the start of a fight making you the natural focus. Combine this with the opposing teams now running more ranged with KBs/ roots and it makes for some extremely frustrating matches. To counter this I've tried to stay out of the skirmish for a few seconds until people settle into their targets, definitely helps when their juggs on your team to eat those KBs before you get there. Also if you're having problems and your running Carnage/Combat try Anni. New dot is ranged allowing you to apply it after you've got KB, you're leap doesn't have a distance restriction, you don't need to stay on target 100% to do damage and with the set bonus it actually does a surprising amount of burst with the apply dots-Ravage/MS-Anni/Merciless combo. Since I've switched I've just found the spec sort of alleviates the areas Mara's are having problems in right now (Survivability, Kited) a bit. The class does need an movement immunity buff and I for the life of me have no idea why they took away our ranged root and gave it to Juggs who without it still don't have any problems staying on target. Though we're not 100% useless, our burst is still some of the best in the game and on the right team we're still lethal as we've ever been maybe even more so if you manage to run Carnage with the support you need for you to stay alive.

EDIT: Already answered above better.

It's been said a bunch of times but all the spec needs is to change how force exhaustion and singularity stacks work. Remove the slow , remove the dot, remove the stacks. Make it a single hitting ability that puts a Singularity debuff on one target and adjust it's damage accordingly since it loses it's DOT. Zen finishes the CD on FE, thus hitting zen could either apply a bigger burst to a single target or set up a smash to Crit multiple targets. I remember reading that the devs want Focus/Rage to have the largest burst of all 3 specs, this adds even more burst to the mix by making FE an instant attack but limits the amount of AOE damage by forcing the smasher to choose between setting up multiple targets or staying on one. This also reduces their utility as they have multiple options, including 2 that are 30m and build focus, to keep on their target. A nice compromise as Smash gets more burst but loses it's large AOE attacks and some utility. One last thing that would have to be played around a bit would be if the damage from the singularity debuff was recorded as an AOE attack or single target for those classes with the AOE damage reduction talents but I don't see it being reduced on some specs as a problem.

If those people are complaining like that in reg WZs then they're just try hards. Losing games no longer seriously hinders any weekly quests progress so there's no reason to get that out of line over any teammates gear. Best to just ignore those types of players.

You do realize that the added 4713 dps over the course of a minute is essentially 1 tick of a healing trance, right? Burst=Kills.

That would make vanishes useless even if they didn't resort to this cheap tactic. Better idea, put a timer on them while they're in stealth. When the timer is up they get hit for 0 dmg and put into combat. Then have Baron Deathmark say "Giradda didn't come here to watch hide and go seek you coward!".

Though group ranked is open role, I'm hoping they TRY to match you up with a group of the same composition. Though it may or may not matter., we'll find out this weekend. Sage Heals, 2 Mandos, VG Tank. Sage forcequakes ground beneath, other 3 scan and AOE around to find you. Once found, Net and burn forcing your heals to come out of stealth or go down 3v4. Lots of mobility on this team as well that will help prevent backstabs if you ever get a full skirmish.