What a horrible misrepresentation of what I was saying. Why do I have to represent some group of baddies to say that I think your example of a good borrowed power is bad. My whole point on it is that it's unsatisfying and that playing around it is a trap for players and is generally not that useful to focus on in the scheme of overall damage. This isn't even a contentious view with any other monks I've talked to or seen talk about this.
I think we actually agree on the broader issue, in that if you wanted to take the more difficult option to edge out another 1% overall dps I also want there to be a less complicated option for people to pick. We can see this in WW's first talent row, or the third talent row for mages. I care less about trying to make people learn the most complicated meta thing to do well, and more about being able to pick a playstyle that I enjoy and be at least competitive. When things are designed badly or the tradeoff is too high as we see in a lot of current talents, I'm not a fan. This is why I'd rather have just a passive damage increases on tier sets, or at least things that are highly visual, direct, and even potentially activatable like the Mistweaver 4pc (though I do find that one a little annoying as well).
It's not a whataboutism. It's saying that if you want these things that make the class more complicated, I'd prefer them in the form of talents that people can pick if they want to. Like choosing between Incanter's Flow or Rune of Power, Eye of the Tiger or Chi Wave/Burst. If you want to fight for those elitist 100% parses with specialized playstyles, fine, have that as an optional thing rather than something thrown on a tier set that tricks people out of the ABC (always be casting) rule. I obviously don't want the most passive playstyle to be the absolute best, I thought I made that clear after saying I was tired of Ice Lance Simulator. I'd much rather be playing Ebonbolt/Glacial Spike like I did back in Legion, but it's horribly under-tuned. On the other hand, I'd rather not have to deal with potential needlessly complicated stuff forced on me. I'm not in a RWF type guild like I was back in BC and Wrath for a reason, I'd like to chill a bit.
The visuals also matter. Unless you set up a weakaura to track your 4pc, good fucking luck managing it. If I see a comet storm I can just have the clock running on my screen to know the next one is in ~20 seconds. I don't need my screen to
look like this.