Guild Wars 2

I’ll try to give you a run-down on the Necromancer:

I started playing it out of nostalgia – I wanted to reproduce the good ol’ times I had with my Necrodude in GW1.
So far I find it lacking. I’ve played a Minion Master+Staff ever since I started playing the class and, to be quite honest, minions seem to be coming straight from hell with nonexistant AI. You have basically no means of controlling them (especially the Flesh Golem tends to just go randomly berserk and run into enemies you don’t even want to tackle).
As soon as I get the gear I’ll switch to Axe/Focus (more direct approach to damage, support of group through stacking of vulnerability etc.) and hope for the best.

Now to answer your questions:
1) Yes. What I’ve seen so far lets me believe that MM is actually one of the more potent ways of going through PvE.
2) There is no particular situation I have encountered so far where one would rather have a Necro over any other class. But then again I rarely find myself in need for ANY specific class.
3) Can’t give a qualified statement on that – haven’t played enough of either.
4) Yes, depending on what you’re trying to achieve with your build you may have to switch weapons for optimal effectiveness.
5) If Anet miraculously ends up giving me some sort of control over my pets, I’ll recommend the class heartily to anyone asking me about it. Until then I can only give you a ‘Meh…’.

Level 80 Minion Master here; did my 100% completion thing without any real complications. I was usually able to run through a crouded area with them ridiculous respawns.

I see how it causes problems for other classes, though.