I don't think you should have to be slotting for set bonuses for a power to be useful on it's own. There's no double speak.
Not everyone plays the same way. I start at level 1 and play all the way, and I don't start slotting sets typically until fairly high level, so taking any power that is not going to actually get used feels bad. I feel the same way about several other power pools. It just happens that Tough and Weave are really important to a lot of my builds, and yes, worth the sacrifice, while the other power pools are sadly not. I ALSO think those other pools should get buffed, but it doesn't change the fact that the current implementation of the Fighting pool, balanced though it may be, feels bad to me, and many others. It's not fun, and it doesn't have to be that way just because that's how it has always been.