Yeah, out of all the changes the only straight buff is Glyph of Templar's Verdict. Even the Hand of Sacrifice change makes you pick between dispelling a healer out of a sheep or using it to save someone, or using it to break CC on yourself by sharing damage with someone. Like I said previously, I have never seen such a stingy wave of "buffs" in 6+ years of playing this game. They admit the spec has serious issues, but they can't find it in their heart to actually dish out an absolute buff with no drawbacks. I hope they keep this up because sometimes you have to hit rock-bottom to see changes.
These half-assed tweaks will lead to another terrible season for Ret, especially with Windwalkers pushing us out of any serious consideration in any PvP environment, hopefully all this leads to a massive public outcry and serious embarrassment for the developers; they are completely delusional about where Ret is right now, and how much help it really needs, especially in relation to the buffs to rogues and windwalkers (and the already strong state of DKs and Warriors). Not only did Ret get jack squat in 5.2, but our main competitors got a lot a well. The developers need a serious wake-up call, and they will probably just have to ruin the spec completely before they stop being so absurd and ridiculous.