[LifeLikeSage]

What the heck would HiPS do?

There's already a round delay for reentering stealth mode, making the HiPS feat useless unless you're using it like a dingus out in the open with no cover.

For example..... I tell you a story of two rogues... for science

If roguey-poguey-dingus is a rogue/shadowdancer and has HiPS on Thay, roguey would have to spend an entire round either: getting shot at, having spells cast at his dumb face, getting knocked down, running in circles in hopes that he's faster, and overall getting wrecked for entering the encounter like a true dingus.

Now, Joe-Schmoe-Rogue is a clever S.O.B. and he knows never to engage a target outside of a decent matrix of cover for re-hiding, since Thay isn't a lame server where you can't re-stealth. Joe sees some jerk face hostile NPC with loot and stands near a cover matrix. Joe pulls out a ranged weapon, he inclines his camera down and zooms in (giving him farther sight range than the "topdown" view allows), fires at the jerk hostile NPC, turns around the corner with more than ample time, and lures the hostile IDIOT over to the cover matrix, where he proceeds to sneak attack (or if he is an assassin) death attack rinse and repeat. Even with gimped HiPS he would have to spend that entire first round running around cover and gaining some distance before entering stealth mode and walking around to test and see if the NPC is still targeting him (since NPCs are dumb and cannot feign losing sight of the enemy for a leet sneak attack like PCs can).

This means that unless you're some rogue/assassin diluted with a combat class to fight Caramiriel style (tank'n'spank), you're going to find yourself running since pure rogues (pure from combat class mixtures) are squishy and must avoid being hit!

I simply don't see how gimped HiPS has any worth to a non-combat rogue or assassin mechanically when the PC will have to spend that first round running away anyways.