Exactly! One of the biggest criticism from the way Carey and even Claremonts handled Rogue's arc for gaining control of her powers is there was very little to no struggle or work involved in getting there. It felt cheap to me.
Also personally, I don't know about others but Rogue's powers to me symbolized a persons struggle with past trauma, a person with a disability or some sort of ambiguous emotional barrier in being getting close with those around her. Something like that, even when you begin a healing or treatment process still takes years and constant maintenance. It's not ever something that completely goes away, it's more you learn to manage it as best you can and then move forward with other goals or objectives you have in life. I think KTs development, with the revelation that fear played a big role in managing her power, allowed that growth to progress in a more natural way than Carey or CCs way.
That's another reason why Tini's handling of this has been disappointing. Don't get me wrong it gets redundant seeing Rogue freak out about her powers x100 over the decades. But I don't think KT left her in the 90s space, more somewhere past that and in a transition area.
Also yes, KT was the last writer the freely use her absorption in her run. Duggan, Zub and Tini very rarely used it while KT allowed her to not only explore the psychological aspect but used it in battle in more frequency. I think for some people either they don't like change in status quo or think the power is a gimmick that might be redundant but personally I can see lots of ways how it can work in conjunction with her power set for new situations and challenges.
Yep though I'll give Hope the benefit of the doubt she has not been around for as long as Rogue but at this point in time Rogue has had more impressive uses of her power mimcry especially in battle. X-Treme had her fight back an alien army basically on her own and during UA she was on a comparable level to Sentry in holding off a Celestial.I stand firm in my stance that Rogue's ability to absorb multiple powers makes her just as or more powerful than Hope. She's the original mutant synergy queen far before Krakoa put mutant "technology/magic" in fashion. If Hickman is a fan of Legacy he should know that. Rogue could easily take the powers of Egg, Elixir, Proteus, and Tempus to become her own "Five". Excalibur has been wasting her true potential so far, but we'll see.
Hope meanwhile I think her most impressive uses of mimicry lie more more with healing and resurrection, at this point she's firmly cemented herself as being a major player in restoring the mutant species back from the brink of extinction. Though it doesn't help that a lot of those accomplishments get muddied up with the Phoenix Force, while Rogue is almost always using her own potential (a bit that Sage helped during X-Treme, it was still her). In terms of combat probably the toughest opponent Hope's fought was Bastion.
Though thankfully, despite the Omega label, I think Rogue is unique enough in her own way that she doesn't directly compete with Hope. Synch, Hope and Mimic are more true power mimics, they all don't directly harm the people they copy and inherently don't need to use touch to use their abilities. Despite KTs development I think Rogue is most similar to Emplate as a more vampiric mimic, a bit she doesn't seem to have the same drive to predate on other mutants or superhumans. well consciously, Carol might argue differently lol...
Speaking of Hope, rereading this scene I'm wondering if their connection is somewhat like a pseudo-light. In that I mean Hope seems to consciously or subconsciously have a pull around specific mutants to protect her; my theory is that this is likely because she is at her most vulnerable when she has no abilities to copy in the vicinity around her so by forming a posse that always wants to be around her and treat her like a queen bee she is basically protecting herself. I think especially during the Generation Hope series they were hinting at Hope being able to manipulate those around her, like a low-level psionic.