It is obvious Dark Knight is being driven (unwillingly for the most part) down a path that relies on its use of magic. Though im not totally against the direction SE wants to go with this job I can understand why fellow drks become emo when sams, wars and drgs are seeing so much melee love.
I've been thinking about how SE can silence its critics. They will never make everyone happy but they can ease the pain and make it more enjoyable.
Wouldn't as little as tier 1 in FastCast and/or MAB go along way in making drk better at using whats being forced upon them? Flavor-wise I see nothing that prohibits this addition. FastCast I would obviously prefer in order to allow me to melee efficiently while casting, but the MAB trait could go along way in easing the gear deficiencies drks have for spell dmg output.
I see this as a better (more likely to actually happen) option than creating something new like a pair of stances that affect magic abilities on one side and melee abilities on the other.
Overall I spend 90% of my time as a drk and even at my emo-est I still love the job.