Shaman Meleeing?

[Estu]

You guys might remember a thread I made a while ago about whether to go with a druid or a shaman for a soloing character. Well, I chose the shaman, and he's now level 26, having leveled almost exclusively solo (though I've been grouping on other characters; soloing can get monotonous (then again, so can grouping)). I'm pretty sure he's going to be the first of my characters to hit 50; he's the highest character by 11 levels.

Anyway, to the point: I've been wondering about the usefulness of meleeing as a solo shaman. So far I've been root-dotting since level 14, and though a bit slow, it's pretty effective, and I can reliably take down yellows with it, even a low red something like half the time (resists are a bitch). I've heard varying opinions on whether shamen should melee, and I'd like to know if and when it becomes a useful alternative to root-dotting. I don't have my pet yet, so I'm not sure how exactly it changes the soloing dynamic, but I saw a shaman who conned red running around with a pet that conned blue to me at 26, so I can't imagine the pet is nearly as 1337 as a mage or necro pet. Obviously the pet would be useful crowd control, but let's say I hit 50 and I'm soloing an even-con mob: do I root-rot? Do I have the pet tank? Do I tank myself?

Right now, as you might imagine with this being my highest character, my gear is nothing special: a full set of large banded except for the gorget which is a collar of undead protection, some +2 wisdom earrings and rings, a gloomwater harpoon (a recent purchase, for 300pp), a bark shield, and a preserved split paw eye for that sweet +2 sv poison. When I got the harpoon, I thought I'd give meleeing a whirl, so I hit up old Travis Two Tone in Neriak, a level 25 mob when I was 26, buffed myself up with all of my melee buffs except the 18-second one, dotted him with my two best dots, slowed him, and cast the strength/ac/etc. debuff. And went to town.

And guess what? I sucked. I did some DPS with my spear, but he did a lot of damage to me and I had to heal myself a couple of times to avoid dying (this is a fight I entered with full HP and MP). Root-dotting was way more effective. Now, it is true that my gear is nothing special, and my offense/defense/piercing skills are somewhat underdeveloped for my level, but nevertheless, the contrast between that and root-dotting was pretty sharp.

So, anyone who's had high level shaman experience - how does it work? I also need to think about this to decide what kind of gear to go for: if I'm going to be meleeing, I obviously want AC, strength, dex, and the like, so I take down mobs quicker and take less damage, since I want to maximize the number of mobs I can kill over time; if I'm going to be root-dotting, I want WIS, MP, and HP so I can take on tougher mobs without running out of resources, since there is then no way to increase the number of mobs killed over time.