Fire wasn't THAT bad at the start of 5.2 (after the bomb buff).....the majority of raiders were rocking mastery gear which contributed to poorly itemised gear for a fire switch....but it really wasn't THAT bad. Along with Warlocks, we've been top dps in both dungeon tiers apart from maybe the two weeks before the bomb buff...ask hunters how they feel at the moment. As Swizzle mentioned in another thread, there are inherent problems with a spec based on crits because there is no way to balance a bonus, but fire is in a pretty good place dps wise at the moment.