Umm no, on anything that matters your chances of procing a shield block on right up there with parrying or evading it. Our skill is so low that we're at the floor for proc rate on whatever tier shield we're using. That is why shield mastery was a laugh fest, it's useless on us as we won't be procing a shield block to begin with.
The lack of DW is annoying, but so did everyone not NIN until very recently. Should a THF run around with a shield on until 80+ when they get DW 1? Should BLU's run around with a shield until they get the spells for the set points at 80+? How about WAR, BST, or even our dear Winja's?
No, your fantasy about running around with a sword+shield is just that, a fantasy. DW provides a 42% increase in DPS along with whatever stats we get from our off hand weapon. Your not getting anywhere near that with a shield on, the closest is /DRK for when I'm on stun duty. At least then I can spam Absorb-TP to built TP prior to running in and LR SE CDCing it up. Otherwise I'll keep my /NIN, 42% extra damage along with my various swords is simply awesome. That and the NI line of spells are useful for landing things, you probably completely forgot about those. +30 magic accuracy for 15 seconds on whatever element you want, juicy.