I liked having dot management and fast paced reactionary gameplay along with the rest of the hunter toolkit (pets, traps, and high mobility). To me, the old spec fit well with my idea of being an arcane archer, someone who specifically infuses their shots with various kinds of magic to rend their enemies apart from afar while controlling the flow of battle.
Would be my take on the idea, though the post should be updated at some point. If you’re less inclined to the magic take on things, I would recommend Ghorak’s idea instead.
To me, the gameplay that I enjoyed no longer exists, and thematically the two ranged specs we do have don’t fill a niche that I think SV could have easily have filled if they thought it was too similar to MM at the time.
The base class itself is fundamentally very different from the warlock IMO. I think there’s only so many damage profiles you can realistically have (consistent / burst / dots which sort of fall under consistent).
The same was not extended to the old spec and its players. But I don’t think Dawn was attacking SV there. A lot of us would much prefer a 4th spec to avoid the same mistakes Legion made.