It's hard in the sense that you have to use your brain, sure. It may have something to do with my being hell bent on keeping my gear current as well, but I've been absolutely steamrolling through the leveling process (currently 33) as a watchman using Kira exclusively. Everything just dies, up to and including elites, and I've had amazing success soloing same level champion mobs.
Learn your cooldowns, and don't be afraid to use them early; saber ward isn't going to do you one damn bit of good if you're already down to 400HP, for example. Also being biochem helps a fair bit if you're really having issues. Aside from that, interrupt everything under the sun and remember that you do have more than one interrupt... Kick is all well and good, but Stasis and Leap do the job just as well (in most cases) and between all of those nothing should be sliding through. There's more to it obviously (there always is ) but if you keep that stuff in mind there isn't much you're going to have trouble with.
Compared to some of the nightmarish garbage I had to deal with as an end-game affliction lock over the last 4+ years of WoW, this is child's play. It's also quite a bit more fun, in my opinion.