pve: both are find in pve. thane will do it better bc of shild/parry. the hunter have nearly nothing for his def. for raids, always the first pick will be thane bc of shild and ae ability. for me thane is better on pve.
solo: the two are just really difficult to compare. sneak, dog, bow, hardly defensive vs shield, lightning, ae, tank, visible without speed... both i play right now the most.
most solo players have a high rank. the thane definitely does better at lower rank bc of his def. i like at these patch thane much more (my hunter had high mop befor the change and without it, a fight usually lasts much longer or too long
)
duo: always thane bc of shild,peel,damage,... 8man same, zerg also for sure bc of ae.
thane all the way! its realy a fun class. you can do almost anything. not everything as good as a special class, but how could that work? be aware that you will be cut down very often when you are alone. if you can deal with it, the best class in the game awaits you in my eyes.
In the past I was also 50/50 (hammer), but only 10 in shield and the rest parry. I thought it was very good. I'm now on the road for a while with the standard 39/42/50 ... also good. my plan is now to switch to 50/50/23 shield. the bottom line is that it shouldn't mean much less defensive and slam is generally purged anyway. st usually only helps with opponents where you wouldn't need a slam anyway
ax sounds good and i always wanted to, but somehow i can't find a good ax. actually only lt rog is in question. in terms of styles, I also tend to hammer.
In the end, not such a huge difference, shild swap will be mandatory one way or another.