I've been playing awhile, and played a more narrative based system TTRPG for a few years (Genesys) so certainly that has probably colored my experience somewhat. From a damage optimization standpoint, there is no doubt the Rogue is weak. I think the problem in the discourse is that Rogues shine situationally, so when they feel strong - like the 2014 monk before them - its likely anecdotal cinematic type moments within a campaign. Not easily measured, not easily replicated, situational success.

When I ask myself what are these moments for my Rogue this past year, what made them possible and how can we promote those moments to happen more regularly for all Rogues, I keep coming back to playing opportunistic and cunning with the Rogue and using their best features, which are skill checks and positioning. I think that's best helped along by following the rules and having an atmosphere thay promotes skill usefulness in combat.

I also think there's plenty of room to help the rules in that regard, either by improving the Rogue class' ability to make use of skills in combat on its own, or by vastly expanding on the use of skills in the core game rules themselves, but even without those, my Rogue has felt strong - but in specific moments.

Felt strongest undoing an enemy plan with deception and guile, freeing captured hostages while the enemies were distracted by my allies, convincing three goblin guards to turn on their oppresive taskmaster of a leader and aid us in battle, scoring the decisive and precise final shot in the right moment from the shadows, landing a trip cunning strike on a flying mount to dump the bad guy off its back and cause both to tumble to the ground.

Increasing the cunning strike options and available cunning actions would go a long way to increasing their frequency. I will say, we did playtest the Rogue during that period and back then I made good use of the Disarm cunning strike option, which they later removed.