I agree that any class that must be in melee to deal damage should be more survivable but I feel that heath and armor are not in the spirit of a "rogue" class. The theme of a rogue is not having more stats then the enemy, but rather having more deception, avoidance, and underhanded tricks than their opponent.
I feel that flame shield, smoke, fade, and back jack are a step in the right direction in that they are survivability that isn't based on stats. Unfortunatley most of those skills belong to another rogue spec. Flame shield is great, however it does not mitigate all forms of damage (it rightly shouldn't) and to make a class able to only survive only one form of damage is a recipe for rock paper scissors gameplay.
I propose a skill that mitigates melee damage based on player reaction time: A close quarters blink behind your target. This skill would be cast at just about melee range (3-4 blocks) and put you at the same melee range at the back of your target. The enemy must turn around and reacquire their target to continue the fight. This costs them time while the runeblade is able continue damaging them. Note that the cast and placement range is are the same so it cannot be used to catch or escape and only creates extra survivability through deception. It does not even provide any extra damage as runeblades get no bonus for being behind their target.
One of the great things about this skill is that scaling the cooldown up or down makes them more or less survivable. In order to make the skill an effective damage mitigator it must have a short cooldown and yet too short of a cooldown will make them nigh unhitable. Lets go to some extremes with the assumption it takes the enemy a 3/4 of a second to respond(.125-.15 seconds for most) and turn around and reacquire their target (time here varies by player). A one second CD will leave almost no time to hit them due to constantly having to turn around. At ten seconds the skill provides a %7.75 relief from being hit(9.25 seconds of being hit/10 seconds without the skill). So if they need to be 10% more survivable in a left click war (Roughly equal to 84 more HP) then a cooldown of 8 seconds would be appropriate. This math is extremely rough and based on the idea that damage is done equally over that period of time (which it isn't) but you can clearly see that scaling the cd directly relates to melee damage mitigation. The resource cost of the skill is another factor that can limit mitigation in extended fights but I feel that most readers are probably bored with my wall of test as it is.
I feel that buffs through more stats are both boring and not in the spirit of a rogue. Lets give you more cool utilities to make you more survivable. If you still want to win through pure stats you can always try plaldin/dreadknight