George Carlin, anyone? No? Oh well.
In any case, have a 35 defense guardian locked into the spec due to not keeping up with t7's equipment. Having had some experience with this class and my 32 shadow I am going to go with the Guardians suck crowd. My shadow has better burst and higher damage as long as they have power and fankly feels more durable than my defense guardian. Perhaps it's just perception due to highr dps=enemies go down faster (armor mitigation on my guard ~40% vs ~30 on shadow), I don't know.
I wondered about what my shadow has over my guardian. Baseline stun, finishing move, skills that do higher dps, ability to burst. Guardian also has some burst but the only one I am aware of involves skills on 1min timers. Most of guardian cc is locked into the defensive tree which means that the guardians with cc have crap damage. And dps guardian damage feels subpar while being insanely soft. And all that's on top of skills not firing on activation, etc. The same comparison could be made between the guardian and other classes, and I am sure has been.
Yes, there are minmaxers who managed to bend the class to their will. The amount of know how this requires is far beyond that of ANY other class. Doesn't mean I want it to be simplified to a point where facerolling is all that it takes but changes, perhaps substantial, are in order.