I want to be a Ninja but..

[Sleigh]

In a good group you will be contributing a terribly large amount (inb4 people erroneously come in and say it's 1.6% raid boost - it's a bit more than that) with Trick Attack, close to 3% in practice. If everyone's pulling their weight it's massive, not to mention its ability in turning DPS checks into nothing. Your personal damage will be a small bit below DRG, a bit above SMN (depending on Foe's), but Trick Attack is enough to compensate. Then you've got the other utility tools like Shade, Goad, and every once in a while Dancing Edge.

Positional wise, it's not bad. You aren't ruined if you miss an AC or AE, just 60 and 80 potency lost respectively, not the end of the world if you can't get to your spot for some reason. You only do positionals once every 3-6 attacks anyway, and if you fail, turn your AE into a DE and do an AC/AE in its place next time. Only Trick Attack is unjustly strict, and I wouldn't mind if the effect was taken off the positional requirement list (can keep the potency loss).

Basically, NIN is a team player class. You're usually not going to top the charts, in general you'll be within 90-95% of the top DPS in your group, but you'll be providing enough of a boost that if you look at what you as a NIN contributes, you're a damn strong class. If they fix Mudra lag, and possibly give some TP adjustments so it's not so draining on your MCH/BRD to play TP restoration, the class will more or less be perfect.