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Why would a rogue fail at picking a standard lock? Or disarming a simple trap? Or sneaking around like he has done half his life? I'm just curious on your viewpoint, as I can't fathom the above situations in any "realistic" setting (I'm aware we are playing imaginary dragon slaying dudes).

The only argument that holds true for the above is: during combat. A stressed/low time environment is the ONLY time I would considering an accomplished thief/rogue/whathaveyou to be able to fail the above (baring even stealth, they should never "fail" stealth past a certain level of skill, only really observant enemies noticing them if they pass appropriate skill checks).

The chance to let a basic arrow trap shoot me in the face because of a dreaded 1 out of 20 roll is one reason I never played a rogue in the past...it just never made sense to me.

Hrm...don't really see much that convinces me. Stealth seems more than reliable if you're exceedingly practiced at it. In fact your only rolling to see "how" stealthy you are compared to enemy "spot" check (includes hearing atm)...in that case a rogue should never fail, and should be able to pull off a particular level of practice at it no matter his enviroment...a skilled stealth practicioner is not going to strip over something, scrape against something, etc, etc, and It suspends a huge amount of belief in the setting if something like that happens.

For instance, I was DMing for some new-er players in 4e a year or so ago and a fighter was trying to stealthily look through a door. He rolled a 1 so I said he tripped over a rock and fell through the door...a rogue would never EVER do this as he practices at his skills and hones them to a razor edge: or he dies.

As for traps, it matters not one lick if we know how they "realistically" function. My character does, he's trained in dealing with traps. He should be compitant in dealing with traps up to a certain level of skill. "Standard" is defined by the DM and adventures, and it is unknown to the player but the DM sure knows how complicated one is and whether my 19 skill trap disarmer can easily handle the dwarven arrow trap or not.

Lockpick especially, basic locks are DC16...no rogue should fail that unless they purpously eschew(sp) skills for combat (perhaps a thug build).

There are few skills I can come up with any reason to ignore an auto-XYZ score. Only during combat when time/pressure is a concern would it be OK to me to ignore the take 10 unless you can construct something reasonable to me....which is hard if you try so we're probably jsut at an impass on how we think the class should go

Just talking, no offense intended in anything ^_^

One thing that's worth noting is that in exchange for the right to add your expertise dice to skill checks, you've given up the chance to be a substantially more effective combatant. The only thing Rogue gives you that Fighter doesn't is the System Mastery maneuver (and a few other less important ones), proficiency with thieves tools, and 4 additional trained skills. In exchage, you give up 2hp/level on average, the ability to use heavy weapons (including the longbow) the ability to use medium and heavy armour and shields (you may not want to, but having options are always good), 2an additional maneuver known, an extra attack per round, and the ability to add your attack dice to attack/damage without the conditions imposed by sneak attack. As an elven fighter with the first feat from the stealth tree, you can have 7 skills including spot, listen, and sneak. A few more would be nice, but you can get by with that.

By increasing the DC to fit the character, your DM has removed the only advantages to playing a rogue. You could do everything you currently do EXACTLY as well and have all of the above listed benefits if you were a fighter focusing on stealth and skills. The current design of the rogue means that you can get by in combat (albeit suboptimally), but you are awesome at skill challenges. Your DM has to understand that they are taking away the only awesome thing about the class, and in effect making you a fighter (but worse).

I don't like skill mastery either.

It has a bunch of strange rough spots.  Take a rogue with a +6 skill bonus.  A DC 16 check is auto-success, while a DC 17 is 50% success: a tiny change in difficulty results in a huge change in success rates.

The temptation to "just up the numbers" on the part of the DM is natural.  There are entire schools of DMing built around doing just this, where you eyeball how hard things should be based on how competent you think the players should be.  Tossing bonuses of this kind at a player can easily lead to DC-inflation (much as adding to your attack bonus leads to AC-inflation in monsters, or boosting your AC leads to attack-inflation in monsters).

Abilities that let you do things, like the combat expertise dice, can help get around this.  A fighter's expertise dice aren't just adding to damage or ability to lift things, they also let the fighter impose their will upon the world -- knock critters prone, knock them flying, etc.  This is a vulgar form of competence that isn't answers nearly automatically with a "inflate numbers" response on the part of an eye-balling DM.