Every class board (as usual) is normally rantings and complaints about how bad their class is. Makes me feel a bit sorry for Blizzard CM's really, it must be a crappy job at times when all the people posting are so hostile. I read a (serious) post in the rogue forum the other day that they should get 200 energy (thats double what they get now) to make up for all the shortcomings of the class :0 Quite amazing the way people's perspectives just get totally skewed

Fear is pretty crappy on a priest, since you last played the introduction of pvp trinkets has nerfed it a fair amount. The nerf they are talking about i think at the moment is that it will become dispellable, but given i can only fear once every 26 secs, and most of the time the enemy gets out of it anyway I am not so bothered

I find it mostly useful as a kind of distract tool, as people still take 1-2 seconds to click the right button, in which time i can run away

Shadowpriests could always tank, just no bugger lets us

I believe there are examples of shadowpriests tanking big endgame mobs, but usually they are buffed up to the eyeballs (flasks of the titan etc) and have lots of stamina gear, really its the healing that keeps them alive and pretty much any class is probably just as capable under similar circumstances.