Not sure why you included that first bit about SV in BC, it has nothing to do with what you quoted, beyond the fact that, like I said, it did allow you to increase both your own damage, and others as well. As for that second part, about SV having talents that focused on melee, you ignore the fact that any such things were entirely situational, as melee itself for the class back then was a situational requirement. No matter what you choose back then, no matter which talent category you went into, it all was designed to add to the core class design, which in itself was primarily focusing on ranged combat. Melee was only utilized at times where you were forced into it due to the minimum attack range on ranged weapons.
And with that...
...again, the melee aspects of Survival back then were also entirely situational, and not designed to make you want to shift your focus towards melee combat, over ranged combat. The core design philosophy for the hunter class back then was that each talent category focused on one part of the class fantasy as a whole. Beast Mastery - focused on pets and bestial aspects, Marksmanship(previously called Ranged Combat) - focused on your ranged weapons, and Survival(known early on as Outdoorsmanship) - focused primarily on utility/defensives, but also situational improvements to damage. They expanded on that a bit with for example Expose Weakness, but the core focus of that category as a whole was still on utility/defensives.
No matter which talent category you focused on, none of it heavily affected your core playstyle/priorities. Again, Core Specializations that were introduced with Cataclysm, while they were early versions of what we can see today, they were what they intended to allow us to focus on dedicated core playstyles/individual identities. Wrath began the shift towards these more focused identities, but it still did not have these dedicated core playstyles as options. Wrath did change things when it came to the philosophy of class design, yes, but it did not by any means amount to us having actual core specializations. Again, these came with Cataclysm.
The things you talk about with tuning and numbers are irrelevant to the actual philosophy of their approach to design. Same with what you said about class buffs, these have/had nothing to do with core playstyles and core identities. As for the actual value/validity of SV as a spec, and the functions of individual effects or abilities of the spec, in Wrath, feel free to check Bepples post above. I don't need to repeat what he said.