... Play what makes you happy. Personally, I don't get all the coercer sucks posts.
I play on the top raiding guild on Nagafen (PvP). We've cleared all of EoF and most of the Avatars.... pvp reasons for the remaining ones. Without question we have one of our Coercers with a Dirge in the MT group. Power regen, hate gain, coercsive healing and dps on the MT and Swash/Assassing in group (Typical with our Temp/Deflier only in MT group). If Druid is put in there, then I'm Linking a warlock or heavy scout out of group. In MT group, still around 1-2k dps. Extra coercer goes with fighters for dps buff and power regen.
solo play.... is there a better solo class? ... I question that. I've completely solo'ed 90% of claymore threw PoA and now have solo'ed SoD to Mistmoor Castle (Catacomb was really the only hard part here). Only a handful of classes can say that... and I am far from uber.
Not sure whatelse a class can do to be considered OK... Obviously we have some issues, but not at the point where I want to go illy.
Enjoy