>1.) What makes thieves "scary" (the more appropriate term is
>annoying) is the skill steal. Having two or even three entire
>thief paths doesn't make a thief overwhelmingly tough it just
>gives them a lot more utility. I mean honestly what
>combination of thief paths really worries you more then the
>steal skill. You can't remove the steal skill and have them
>still be thieves and what is annoying is that if you die in a
>PK there is a chance someone makes off with your gear. If you
>have to deal with a thief there is almost a garuntee that you
>will have to replace most of your inventory which is time
>consuming(especially prep bags) and it is significantly
>easier for a thief to steal from you then it is to be turned
>into a corpse in general. It is also frustrating because it
>can be near impossible to retaliate against a thief who is not
>interested in trying to kill you.

There is a big difference between "scary" (PK strength) and simply annoying people by being a steal-n-run thief.

I think thief points translate directly into toughness, which is why thief skills have costs and prerequisites. Likewise, the original-original-poster (Dirt?) was complaining more about the number of strength of a certain thief's abilities. Obviously skill, game knowledge, gear, etc. all play a huge role in PK toughness as well, but specifically in the case of thieves, paths/points definitely make or break characters.

Steal is never going away, and in practice, it's use is probably 90% nuisance and 10% tactics. That is to say that most thieves use steal to score nice gear and not simply to disable a person as part of a larger scheme to PK them. It's a VERY potent skill in PK, but totally separate from PK, it's also a very annoying skill. I think most people have a problem with the latter, not the former.