Here watch these offical ads for the shai class.

What do we see the Shai doing in these vidoes? Gathering, processing, fishing, cooking, alchemy. literally running away from conflict. The only time we even see her engage something is when the ad show her with other classes in the game, and even than the video cuts out at the end before she even does anything.

Let look at the corsair ad an see what she does in it.

Fighting enemies and engaging in combat. 

The result PA clearly wanted shai to not feel like a combat class they designed it with the intent of making a class that life skillers would flock too. So your dislike for the state of the class is a you problem. You can blame PA all you want, but they made it very clear they never intended for Shai to be a combat focued class & that it's purpose is for life skilling.

Those are cinematic trailers not the gameplay trailer. You conveniently skipped out on her combat trailer that everyone else gets:

I skipped out on corsair combat trailer too, but even with just her release trailer you still see her fighting mobs. Also why is shai the only class in the game that starts out with two life skills at professional 1? What benefit and drive does that tell you when many people choose to make their life skill altz a shai and not a zerk, or a warrior, or a dark knight, or a corsair? I know poeple that have 10 shai's as alt characters, but they use non of them for combat and their all perma parked at different popular gathering zones. Fact is shai is and always will be a class for lifer skillers, just because you don't like that doesn't mean PA has to change it, that how they made her that how majority of the playerbase sees her and uses her, and that how she's been for years.