i've never played a straight class martial artist, but i know that a martial artist/savage barbarian can be fun and effective. once you hit 5th level in monk you're immune to fatigue so you can move in and out of rage at will (which is great for resource management and lets you really maximize once/rage rage powers, since you can use them every round if you want).
It's one of the best archetype for the monk. Your Stunning fist gain a little bit, but the main point is:
Exploit Weakness (Ex)
At 4th level, as a swift action, a martial artist can observe a creature or object to find its weak point by making a Wisdom check and adding his monk level against a DC of 10 + the object’s hardness or the target’s CR. If the check succeeds, the martial artist gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls until the end of his turn, and any attacks he makes until the end of his turn ignore the creature or object’s DR or hardness. A martial artist may instead use this ability as a swift action to analyze the movements and expressions of one creature within 30 feet, granting a bonus on Sense Motive checks and Reflex saves and a dodge bonus to AC against that opponent equal to 1/2 his monk level until the start of his next turn.
With it, you will get around 2 of the monk problem: Attack bonus and DR.
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I like Oracle more than Monk for Rage Cycling. Oracle 1 gives you Rage cycling at 10th level for a lot more rage powers as a Barb 9/Oracle 1 than you can have as a Barb 5/ Monk 5.
That said, I love the Martial Artist. It's a great class, especially if you are Wisdom based, it can have great accuracy and actually make use of stunning fist.