Rogue (Skills / Talents / Glyphs)
"Lackluster" Talents (Source)
The "lackluster talent" thing is something almost every spec throws around. In almost every case, we weren't trying to make the 51 point talent the best in the tree and we weren't trying to make the 51 something you use as part of your standard rotation.
As I have said before, what we wanted to do with rogues in BC included getting poisons back into the game, making sap a more useful CC, and getting rogues to pay a little more attention to the rest of the group (with things like Tricks).
Rogues versus Ranged DPS (Source)
I think you get into dangerous territory with the "very few guilds" argument. Unless you have really done a comprehensive review of most guilds, you can't really say that, and even then you would need to know a lot about the guilds and players in question.
I do think there is a melee disadvantage, and I do think rogues are probably not quite doing the damage they should in ideal situations.
Be careful with Patchwerk though. It's an ideal situation for rogues, but it's an ideal situation for any dps that doesn't have to move or run around. You need to look at the LK equivalent of Void Reaver (and I'm not sure there is one -- Grobbulus maybe) where the ranged dps have to move and the melee can more or less go crazy. Another problem with Patch is that the fights are short. You can burn all your cooldowns and have them active for a decent percentage of that fight. Rogues typically need to lay down a groundwork before they really start pumping out the dps, and they really start to shine in situations where the casters have to start worrying about mana.
We knew this was the risk with introducing the combat dummies, but some players do have the tendency to generate numbers from those tests and then expect to see that dps in a raid. Usually encounters are much more complex than that.
Fan of Knives (Source)
We aren't trying to turn rogues into an AE class. We just want them to have something to do in AE situations besides making Heavy Borean Leather. The new Fan works pretty well for that.
We do think rogues might be a little low on single-target bosses, but we're also cognizant of the fact that they tend to do much better with good gear and good buffs. We have some plans in mind.
51-point Talents (Source)
I think you are expecting more out of the 51-point talents than we are. The death knight may be the best example. They are useful 51 pointers, but none feel mandatory and the trees aren't balanced completely around them. Unholy Blight is probably the closest to feeling necessary, but really only for tanks.
We do still think that those comments about Hunger for Blood still stand. However, it's not a simple fix because Assassination can do very high (if not the highest) dps (in a world without HaT bugs), but only for a skilled player who invests a lot of time into it and only on long fights. That means to juice up the tree in some places we'd need to nerf it in others in order to avoid Assassination becoming THE PvE spec. It is something we're working on -- just too early for any announcements.