What drives a poor reputation for the Rogue class?

[Psyren]

The question is how big a deal this is, and how it compares to what alternative builds have to offer.

Exactly - wow, I succeeded without rolling, at a thing that I wasn't going to fail the roll at anyway (hello Reliable Talent + Expertise + perma-Advantage, all of which I'll get before 9 now.) Sure wish I had a subclass feature instead...

A failure of imagination on what you can do with false identities is not "vague at best".

I have plenty of imagination thanks. The issue is not "derp, what do with false identity?" but rather "what makes the Assassin's false identity so much better than one I can craft with my base class that it's worth an entire subclass feature?" As above, "you don't need to roll" isn't good enough, especially with the 7-day price tag tacked on. The only thing I can think you're advocating that makes this beneficial, is that other rogues aren't allowed to use their Disguise kits and Deception expertise or something.

Fair enough. Pretty awkward that the UA version of the Assassin still grants advantage on Deception checks for disguises, which becomes actually useless instead of just potentially useless like it is now.

Spot on, and I did point that out in my feedback survey at the time. I expect we'll find out what they did with that when we see who got bumped for the Soulknife and why.