This in response to the issue of the Rogues power level, mostly. Rather focus on DPS of a class, which a Rogue shouldn't need to match a Fighters, why not look at the skill system as a whole? For a heroic fantasy game the skill system has always seemed mundane to me. So rather than trying to fix the class, why not try to fix the focus so that skills can be used in a more heroic fashion?
First off we'd need to look at what needs to be a skill. Things like do we really need a Climb and a Swim skill or could we combine them into Athletics? I for one would ditch Perform (Bards could keep it for their abilities as a Class Feature that they automatically get a skill point in every level). Why does it need to be there except for bard? If you want to say your character is a good singer, do you really need a skill to cover a quirk of that character? You cold always make it a trait that gives a bonus to Diplomacy. If you want to make money off of it, Profession would make more sense.
As for skills being more heroic, that's one place I'm having trouble. I'd say that if you can take ten on a skill you can just succeed at the skill for one thing. Even if climbing down a knotted rope on a cliff side to get into a cave, it's still a knotted rope and you are playing heroes. Why worry about this even though there might be a slim risk of falling and taking damage? What if you could use skills to more effect in combat, such as tumbling around a giant to get it to overbalance and fall or Diplomacy to get an enemy to hold their action rather than attacking that round? It would give all the classes another option but would favor Rogues the most.
The basic idea I came up with was taking a FRA to make a skill check that is either opposed with an appropriate skill or targets the AC or CMD. Something that would allow you to do something cool in combat rather than worrying about DPS. Of course this is dependent on using the current skill system, which might not be the best option. Any one have any thoughts on how to make skills matter more?