Realised midway this became an essay. Hope it helps at least if you have the patience to read it. -- Prefacing this that I'm on PC where sliding sideways (+ shooting while at it) in and out of cover is so easy that each class basically has a hunter dodge on-demand where the movement is considered. Rift can be the strongest class ability or useless depending on how you use it. Personally when I play comp nothing out of the class abilities is as oppressive as a well places rift behind a choke that the warlock or/and his team uses as a anchor for starting health recovery instantly (prevents getting rushed from primary chip damage) and quaranteed wins in primary 1v1s. When I see it used effectively (and very obnoxiously) is like that. The warlock drops the rift behind cover so that he can peek out while still standing in it. This already quarantees him winning every primary 1v1. Smart opponents wont even try challenging, which locks the area down. From there the warlock can extend out of cover for some ways to find 1v1s. If he misses a shot or takes too much damage he can disengage and slide back into cover and start regenerating from the rift immediately. This prevents the usual thing where it's easy to rush down weak opponents who're trying to recover health behind cover. Rift is mostly proactive, or you need to disengage and take cover before using it. Biggest mistake you see is warlocks trying to use it like a barricade and pop it in the open when taking fire. This is wrong and will kill you. Comparing the class abilities: Arc battery overshield hunter dodging is obnoxious, but will go away after this season. Artifact mods shouldnt be a thing in pvp anyway, so I'll ignore this part. Normal hunter dodges are basically reactive mistake fixers. You put yourself in a bad spot and dodge back to cover. You could've just not put yourself in that spot to being with. Dodges are stronger on console where the sudden movement messes aim assist, but on PC you can do the same movement as the dodge just by sliding sideways and good MnKB aimers can shoot a hunter dodging in the open while he's at it. So not as much value. Titan barricade creates temporary cover. It's good for quickly making a rez or grabbing heavy safely, but other than that it's the same as the dodge. Could just use cover well and get the same result. 2 guys shooting at a barricade with primaries will break it in a few seconds. Compare these 2 to rift and what I went through earlier. Cannot be canceled by opponents (besides suppressor nades), very strong recovery tool, lasts a long time, benefits everyone standing in it, locks down areas, quarantees wins in primary 1v1s if someone challenges. It has a long CD for a reason. Summing it up, and I mean this in all good faith: If you think rift is bad, you can learn to use it better. For reference my opinions come from a PC 5500 comp player's perspective, if you care about that sorta thing.

See, I main Warlock but dabble with the other two and I always massively miss my rift when using Tootan or Munter

Playing on all 3 I hate hunters dodge like... a lot and would prefer a rift 100% over a little titan shield as well, get your kill, place rift near cover, then use both for next fight advantage for like a 75 percent chance to best them

How are you using the rift? It sounds like you use it in the heat of battle, which isn't how it should be used.