See, I don't use haste potions. I avoid scrolls whenever possible. I don't touch most consumeables. I ignore bombs and I don't even throw healing potions.
I feel all these little things make classes less special and ruin the strategic aspect of combat. This is why I would hate a lot of playthroughs and a lot of people would hate mine.
With scrolls, arguably you don't need caster classes at all. Ever. With healing potions (and haste), you'll never need healing spells, as the right configuration can throw 6x of them per turn. Explosives can kill anything, alive or not, before combat even starts. The enemy will be very happy to watch barrels slowly appear out of thin air.
I've experimented with all of those things. I decided I like none of them. Therefore they're banned in my playthroughs, and spells slots actually matter. Long resting too little will never be an issue (if you keep casters around). Spending all your spells slots too early in the day is still a bad idea, at least if you try to get the most out of 2 short rests. Which I will. Again, personal preference. I despise excessive backtracking, so I will just not.
I also don't play warlocks. No matter how I play them, I feel like another class can do it better, or they're multiclassed to the point that the warlock levels are really only flavour. This is probably how you feel about rogues. I don't think we'll ever agree, so it is what it is.
No, I like rogues just fine. I just think they are easily replaced in the party, because the mechanics they are supposed to be good at (stealth, lockpicking, trap disarming) don't pose any challenge. Lockpicking is easy due to overabundance of tools, last I've tried stealth Laezel in heavy armor could do it, and I never found any traps as dangerous in BG2. And I think your post kind of showcases that, that you need limitations to even make certain roles feel more useful.
Which is why I wrote in the beginning that no role is necessary.
Lae'Zel? I extremely doubt that's true on average. Unless you cast spells on your party, non stealth characters are usually found pretty quickly. This would be well balanced if it weren't for invisibility and pass without trace.
You need limitations to make any role useful, If you look at speedruns. Again: it's not about being *useful to me*, it's not *torturing myself*. Why play less efficiently than I could? Why carry 30 kits and fail 5 times on average?
A shadow monk or a specialised bard can fill your rogue slot, as well. It's really a matter of having a rogue type accessible since day 1 when you actually need them, and in harmony with the party. Stealth is not optional if you need it, but then again, you don't need always surprise rounds to win nor high initiative, it just helps.
What rogues have over bards is that they're better assassins. What they have over monks is that they're not melee. What they have over both is higher expertise more quickly, depending. You ultimately "need" a rogue type, not a literal rogue. I find gloomstalker/(fighter)/assassins the most enjoyable until roughly the end of Act 2, but that's just me.
I'm extraordinarily lazy. If I'm not making use of something, you know the situation is dire. Alarmingly dire. I personally find some mechanics Larian uses to be explosively anti-fun, so this is how I play.
