You’re probably right that the lack of branches is mostly intentional. As mentioned way upstream somewhere, sticking r2 Evisc behind Powder and Improved Shurikens is likely there to basically make some AoE stuff baseline-ish since everyone will want Shadow Finishers.
This could just be to throttle our ability to stack single target things. Or maybe just to avoid a world where half the Sub rogues in pug dungeons do like zero AoE damage lol
That said, having to pick up Replicating Shadows too seems like a bridge too far. While it will be fine in any PvE group content where you want a Rupture cleave, it could be an issue in arena and solo play with unwanted bleeds interfering with cc that doesn’t remove dots or is broken by them.
Whether they give us extra branches or not, this part could be helped by swapping the positions of Replicating and Veil Touched. Veil Touched works for both ST and AoE (especially if headed for deep daggers), and the spot it was in would make the cleave optional. It would also give low level rogues a bump in cleave/AoE damage we tend to lag at until approaching max level now. 