New Mage, should I continue or pick another class?

[Vermineux]

I played a Wizard back on live and always found myself being a bit envious of Mages, mostly because of the epic and their cool AA abilities. That being the case I decided to roll a Mage to scratch my EQ itch, but I'm reading a lot of troubling stuff about Mages.

I know there will never be AAs on this EMU and that's fine, and I also realize Mages at 60 in raids are basically mod rod/COTH bots and nothing else, I can accept that, but I'm level 16 at the moment and I have 600p farmed up, and I want to make a final decision about class before I go any further.

1.) The epic is basically unattainable for most people because of the Earth staff. I almost had my Wiz epic back in the day, and I also had a Rogue and Paladin with their epics. I don't mind doing the work for an epic, but if it's something that pretty much isn't going to happen, that's a huge bummer. I'll never be a gigantic raider that plays for years and attends every single raid to be able to earn the DKP/guild credit and trust while also waiting in line for the drop, so it basically takes it off the table for me. I could let this go, but...

2.) Pet aggro dumping upon death is busted. This is a nail in the coffin for the class for me, especially since it seems like its been months now without the problem even being acknowledged. Does this not basically destroy a Mages ability to solo anything level appropriate at anything other than low levels? I know one of the main strengths of the class is farming raw plat from massacring greens, but when it comes to EXP soloing in anything near a safe/efficient way, how can Mages pull this off with chain casting pets not working due to the aggro accruing to the Mage on pet death/go away? The only idea I had was using the air elemental and hoping the stun makes up for the problem, but then that's just a bandage.

I do plan on doing a lot of grouping, but I also really want to be able to dungeon dive and solo some camps at mid/high levels. Given the aggro problem, combined with the other concerns, should I just call it quits now and roll another class? I was thinking Iksar Necro, even though its uninspiring to me and seems really pedestrian ;p. I was also thinking of playing a Paladin again since tanking is extremely fun, and Pally gear is pretty cheap. I can't make up my mind...

Does anyone think the aggro issue has a chance of being fixed? Do the devs on here have a history of ignoring stuff for a while, not even acknowledging it and then out of nowhere patching it?

Anyhow, I'd appreciate others thoughts and opinions on this. Cheers.