That's probably due to the somewhat lower accuracy of the pods, plus, rocket pods are in fact affected by evasion. It's not a matter of it applying by rng. It never applies as of last Tuesday.
Having the same issue, tried clicking extra range and then the dot again. But no success. Also tried loading a sabotage probe and then properly setting the rocket pods again. Still the plasma warhead dot does not apply.
Of course it can come down to a matter of taste but I personally feel that snipers have been changed a lot compared to 1.7. Marksman now has a much more fluent feel to it. Engineering gets a nice dot on your SoS and snipes. Lethality gets to do takedown on any health level after a cull proc. My damage output in marksman spec has never been this good. Just give it a couple of hours and you will definitely fall in love with your sniper again. If anything I feel a bit OP at this moment
I recently bought 2 of these babies from the GTN on The Red Eclipse. So yeah they are still very much around!! Spent a few weeks lurking in the GTN for it to finally appear there. Patience is key!
Concerning the ' what rifle is that' question.. The rifle is the Battlemaster/Rakata one. Same shell, different stats. The battlemaster one is most easy to acquire of course..
having the same issue after 1.3 in the black hole area on corellia havent checked if its the same in KuS but i suspect it to be a general flashlight probe bug