I'll lay it out somewhat bluntly, nothing personal.

Having a "unique spec" that "works for me" is all fine and dandy when you play by yourself.  When you're in a raid, you - as a rogue - have only one responsibility and role, and that's to do as much damage as possible.

If your unique spec can match the dps output of the generally-regarded top dps specs, then that's a bonus.  More often than not, they don't.  Suffice to say, a "unique, personal favorite spec" doesn't do you any favors in the face of the reduced damage you'll deal.

As an example, imagine applying for a job at a French bakery.  They expect you to be able to make traditional French pastries and baguettes.  When you apply, you tell them you make them "your own unique way" and that they are guaranteed to taste good.

That's all fine and dandy, but if they are looking for traditional French baking, your "unique" approach isn't going to cut it.

Now then, some people in our raids may not have perfectly optimized specs.  By and large this is because we've raided with them for over 4 years (in other cases, over 2), we know them personally, and we know they bring more to a raid than just their dps - they bring consumables for everyone else, or they know more about strats and such.

You're just applying.  You don't come with that benefit.  So your best bet is to impress us by your working knowledge of your class (which, based on comments, is lacking based on your wonky spec), your drive to excel and maximize your character (which your gemming and your not-capped professions do not indicate), and overall your ability to rise to the occasion.

Thus far it sounds like you haven't met most of those criteria.

Yes, mostly blues. That is the reason for the cheap gems and enchants.

I personally have no issues with this. I stayed in cheap gear and cheap enchants till I had gear with enchanting.

As far as engineering there are a few nifty items and time savers such as a field repair bot which decreases on time spent waiting for people to get to a repair and summoning them back.

I am not a rouge, but I will tell you that optimally you should be taking one of the professions that boosts your crit, or agility. Something that specifically benefits your class / spec. For example, engineering provides some of the best tanking / healing head items in the game early-on, so I would actually leave that profession to those who will most utilize the benefits from it. Tanks get health from mining, etc, etc.

As far as the add-ons what more does a rogue really need? what would be the point? the built in threat meter that blizzard added is good enough to know when I should use tricks or feint. other mods such as dbm announces to the party for some things. at the point of the screen shot there was no point in having something set as focus (which is part of the standard ui.)

I'll cut you off right there before the rest of the guild gets a-hold of you. The point is taking the most advantage of the available tools for you to optimize your play performance most effectively in the face of lag, conflicting debuffs on bosses, cooldowns, and resistances. The other point is also Raid-Unity. If you don't have Omen, your tanks / healers don't know where you are. You think you'll get a Hand of Salvation? If you don't have BigWigs, you might miss that one crucial raid-announcement that would have prevented a wipe.

I'm not the one to bash over this or that mod, but if you are given a good faith recommendation, the words what is the point are basically a slap in the face, and to be frank I believe an apology is in order.

And yes my spec may not be what's proven "best" but whose to say it does not turn out great? Show me a damage meter with two rogues one the "best" and one with a spec like mine about equally geared and if it is a significant difference then maybe I should not use the spec. Until then why would i not be allowed to use the spec I want? As far as unique for all i know the spec i am using is out there somewhere. I asked a couple questions about honor among thieves but no real research and figured I'd give it a try and saw significant improvement. It seems to fit my playstyle. If i were forced to a spec it could easily end up being worse if all I was thinking during the raid was how much I hated it. However, it is true that the talent itself is really dependend on the other four people in my specific raid group, The talent works optimally when other classes with fast and high crit chance are in my raid group. This is hard to manage in a simple heroics but easier to manage with 10 mans and even more so with the 25 mans.Coordination and group structure is key to optimizing my damage output but I believe the potential is there.

I'll leave this one alone, because simply I'm in NO way knowledgeable about Rogues. However, your spec also is a great influence on either A) your ability to copy or B) your lack of knowledge concerning your own class. At least A) gets you a little credit based on research. B) doesn't. If you can support your spec, and saedo agrees, cool beans! Keep in mind however that the reason we have very few rogues is because we have very high standards for them. Jimi looks like a good call because of a willingness to take constructive criticism, think on it, and reply rationally. Are you going to look like a good call, or a waste of bandwidth?

And with that! I say "Good luck". All of my statements are meant heartfelt. I wasn't trying to upset you or shy you away from your application. I am recommending however that you give slightly more credit where credit is due.

Make paragraphs please. Walls of text are dumb.