MCH is and always has been a solid job. People saw the numbers as weak before Alex came around due to A) It's new, people need time to adjust and B) The only fight you could use as a measure for DPS were not very fair. The only other option was training dummy where melee absolutely flourish and the physical ranged DPS (naturally the weakest DPS jobs) don't really "flourish" at all.
Playing both jobs the strengths and weaknesses of one compared to the other stand out, I'd probably rather play BRD for progression but MCH is really fine.
As for noticing slow runs with MCH? I notice slow runs all the time. People in DF are generally not very good. However MCH AoE is really good and I would welcome a decent/good MCH the same as I would a SMN in a dungeon run.