Tseric from Blizzard shares his interesting reply to a player commenting in regards to the 2.0.6 test patch notes by saying, "the Empowered Talents are essentially mandatory". Have a listen...
That's one way to look at it. You could certainly recoup those removed percentage points in that manner. Devs were just shaving off a little damage from the end-game scenario, as they felt the dps was a little out of line with where they would like it. It's fairly obvious that it's a removal of dps from primary nukes, so there isn't much more to elaborate on.
Cooldown on GDC was a philosophy decision. They decided to agree with you.
Mana shield. You guys have been asking for caster defense in PvP for a while, right? Well, there is something to that effect.
Thanks