I truely love my pallie also, in the group/solo arena i have no complaints at all and my sympathy goes out to pallies that experience those problems. In the raiding situation I am still adamant that they put in a 5% all damage ward that uses a devout essence to help us have more mt raiding capability. With it having a self only target and 2 min recast it would help us on raids where our normal ward drops in one hit. With comparing notes with other classes and close to 1,500 quests done, many of which solo, i like the safe and secure method we have of taking mobs down in soloing times. Like many other posters our group utility is greatly appreciated in just about any group i have been in. The other week i was MT in a group of 2 necros/2 conjurors and a defiler and agro was no problem. People losing agro need to see if it is them or the people grouping that is causing the issue. I was in a raid on Saturday where our raid wiped down to a FD bruiser and when it came down to getting a couple of our guildees rezzed during combat, us pallies were the number one choice for our 100% health rez and durabilty to mob AE damage. I spent more time in that raid warding,group and single target healing and rezzing the unlucky players that were nuked or dotted to worry about how my skills applied to my guardians. Now i will agree that if our MT went belly up my guy would most likely last 2 secs, but that is more because when i am raiding i love to be in 2 different modes, offensive 2 hander attack mode or offensive/defensive spellcaster mode with power regen gear on, either mode i sacrifice alot of mit and avoidance.
Any way you slice it, i think a nice improvemt to our class is a spell or ability to boost our tanking ability in a raid situation, group and solo content i am pleased with.