I don't think ANet dislikes thieves, but I do think no one in development actually plays the class. It's a long observed trend in MMOs that classes without developer representation often get ignored for years at a time. Typically, only the bare minimum of changes to maintain the class as part of the core game are made, if even that. As someone who has been playing thief on and off since release, the lack of passion and engagement with the thief from the development side is very evident. One glaringly obvious way this manifests is when game-wide system changes are made and only thief is left out. Two obvious examples immediately come to mind: 1> The removal of weapon range increasing traits. Thief is the only class that lost a range increasing trait without having the increase "baked in" (made baseline).2> Fixing the max range bug with Engineer's Shield pull skill. Scorpion Wire is mechanically identical, and yet remains unfixed years later.