I have a friend who plays Monk as his alt (his main is warrior) and he was saying the same thing levelling his lancer for Blood for Blood. IMO, the fun part about dragoon is the rush you get from popping your full cooldown combos. Squeezing in your cooldowns between gcd and then finishing it off the combo with a guaranteed crit full thrust that hits for around 1300 damage is more exciting than anything for me. Granted that rush only lasts around 20 seconds and fighting with all your skills on cooldown is laughable in comparison, but as soon as I tasted that, everything else paled in comparison.
On the main topic of this thread, it also just so happens that those crazy burst combos that I love are one of the roles a dragoon can perform extremely well. The only real time it matters whether your dps is average or amazing is during a dps check, and most dps checks are short; making burst damage ideal for dealing with them. Monks may have higher dps during certain fights, but dragoons will always be a reliable source of damage and something for the party to fall back on if necessary thanks to foresight and keen flurry.
I don't compare myself to ranged dps and don't think anyone should. The most solid parties will have 3 ranged and 1 melee, and I'm completely fine with that since there are more ranged dps than melee dps. Melee LB is also the most useful by far, with the only comparably good LB being lv3 Healer LB. As for so many ranged only Garuda ex parties, that's only natural since the fight is hard for melee dps and it's safer for a party to count on the ranged dps not getting boned by the mechanics of the fight than it is to count on a melee dps actually being good rather than a derpgoon or monkey.
