Stealth has a variety of uses, no questions there.
Pick Pocket has some good flavor, but it’s regularly nerfed every expansion (primarily to neutralize it’s usefulness for obtaining gold).
Pick Lock is only useful for Lockboxes (in expansions that even have them) and specific things which exist for the sole purpose of making it desirable (doors in Tol Dagor, cells in maw intro scenario, etc). Of course, this game mechanic can also be appeased via the Mechagnome racial or consumables.
Outside of Rogue-specific quests, there are so few moments where any of these abilities become relevant or useful to the game as a whole. Pick Lock was more desirable in Classic and TBC when dungeons had locked doors in front of them. There’s one quest in Freehold (non-instance) where you have to get the documents from the Dockmaster. Most just kill him, but you can sap him, pick the lock, loot the chest, and be on your merry way.
I wish there were more instances where Rogues had a “different way” of completing the quest. It does so much for the class fantasy… it’s just so rarely executed on.
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Don’t forget poisoning the boss’s potion in Court of Stars! That is one of my favorites!
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Back in the day, I immediately went rogue because a rogue/thief class usually has more access to the world. I really miss the old days of finding another rogue or two and doing chest runs… or doing them solo.
It would be fun if that was still a thing.
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In the old table top games i always played a theif. Stealth and pick pocket were the reason i chose rogue all those years ago.
That said.
There hasnt been much to pick pocket since CN. I havnt seen a lockbox in ages.
I was pleasently surprised to find a quest the other day that i could pick pocket for the required items instead of killing them all.
Some of the “free our allies from cages” quests, you can just go pick the lock and free them instead of killing mobs for keys.
Blizzard is not consistent with this stuff.
I havnt found a single mob in the past 2 raids that had any pockets at all. 
very disappointing.
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Stealth is the single greatest ability in the game. /thread
I’m currently working on picking pockets for 1400+ heavy lock boxes so I’m a bit sour on picking pockets.
All of that said, I do wish there were more quests to use our specialty skills. Disarming traps in ICC and stealthing through Ogrimar/Undercity looking for the errant flagged Hordie to kill was the shizzle.
I miss those days…
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How much do they factor into my play nowdayas? Well, pickpocket didn’t, but the sole reason I created a rogue back then was to have a lockpicker at cap. I made my first rogue in Wrath, so I was also leveling up my lockpicking in the open world (lots of hours swimming around Sunken Temple). Stealth still offers rogues a way to interact with the game that no other class can, just by opting to not do a fight (if feral had vanish, then feral could also play this way, IMO)
I do agree though, I also wish there was more class flavor in questing. There’s a quest in Revendreth that has a slightly different outcome if you have inscription, I thought that was fun…there needs to be more stuff like that. I still remember the class specific broken shore world quests; for the rogues it had to do with lockpicking, where every other class had to kill mobs to find keys, we could just cut to the chase. Was fun.
pick pocket and lockpick i just dont use at all - i’d trade them for pretty much anything else.
back in the days there were neat quests with those but nowadays i just dont see the point.
stealth lost a lot of value since pvp servers died imo but it’s still pretty neat.
p.s uncap outlaw and limit dmg to additional targets past 5. 5 targets is ridiculously bad in current dungeons meta