Now, I agree with this thread, however...
I see so many 'monks r not loved omgg!' threads and posts it's really annoying me. You'd think monks have the worst existance in the world. The fact is, the party leans on you. You, along with the tank, are the most important people in the team. And honestly, the vast majority of monks either are as effective as a mending tank in tombs, or complaining that they get no love.
Whether people like you or not, and whether you like them or not, you still get nearly free passage to any quest, any mission, any ToA group. The 'lesser' classes, the rangers, the mesmers, don't even get that. I would endure a thousand flames if I could walk FoW with any PuG of my choice, whenver I wanted.
That which has the power to destroy a thing has ultimate control over it. Some person griefs you, they die. A monk and his subjects (and lets face it, usually we are the monk's subjects) is a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitic one. If you aren't getting the right treatment back from the group (slow pace, no harsh demands on your skills), then they don't get healing/protting. The counterside problem to this is if the monk is as idiotic as the tanks you portray, alot of groups are going to be extorted for them. It is for this reason the monk is also the class that really does require the most level thinking and maturity.
Monks are not blameless in this. There have been monks in my teams that seem to fancy themselves tank, and tell the warriors to stay back while they rush ahead with their 'uber guardian spell'. In my opinion, if a support character tries to aggressively run ahead and lead, they should be cut off from group support, much as a tank who rushes too much should be cut from monk support.
A good monk can work with a team that is moronic, and likewise, a good party can often work with a screwball monk. However, I usually get at least one decent monk in my team, and that's enough.
To end off, I can't understand why monks feel the need to whine. You're what everyone wants. If someone behaves horrendously, that person is, to put it quite simply, a noob*. Why you would feel horrible because of a screaming noob is beyond me. I've always felt an affinity to monks because, much like mesmers, everyone knows what they want you to do but have little clue about how you do it. The only difference is our more divine brethren are appreciated
I have never played a monk outside of CA, so all that I say is from observations and highly biased opinions. Regardless, these threads are tiring and the sheer number of them is larger than several subsections of the forums.
*I am taking, as I always have, a noob to mean a degenerate imbecile, and not a new player or someone with a lack of game knowledge from newness.