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You've heard wrong. Gravity is a solid single damage set with Propel and Lift, but what you need for farming is AoE.

Fire dishes it out with Hotfeet and Fire Cages. After fire, plant comes in with the next best AoE. It's AoE immobilize deals more damage than the others and Creepers contributes a good deal of damage. You also have the enemies damaging themselves due to Seeds of Confusion.

Here's a guide to Powerboost that I have found very useful and accurate. It contradicts a good bit of what people commonly believe about the power.

People can currently grief people with ID if they choose too. Surprisingly, you just don't see it happen.

I often play a plant/ff controller without the ally shields. So far, it hasn't been kicked from any teams. I only recall one instance where someone asked for shields. I stated that I did not have them and the response was a simple "oh".

As for why people gravitate towards certain sets, I think some very good reasons have been put forth already. There are obviously some powerful combinations that min/maxers and/or farmers favor. There are new sets that attract attention by virtue of being new. There are some combinations that combine effectively for concept. There are even some sets people favor because the powers can be rp'ed as a variety of different things.

Also, to address the specific example, you've given of Sonic/Ice controller. I assume you're referring to this thread here, in which only one person suggests anything other than Ice/Sonic. In fact, one person expresses a great deal of enthusiasm for the combo. I'm not sure where the skewed perspective is coming from.

Don't expect much. As you could tell from a brief scan of this forum, fire/kin threads are a dime a dozen. Click the tag for fire/kin and you'll get three pages of results. It's nothing against you, but it seems lazy when people post a build that ignores the same basic information given time and time again. That said, I'll give you a few tips anyway.

Hotfeet is your source for damage and it needs more than 3 slots. Damage procs, and a moderate amount of dam/end will greatly increase your kill speed. You'll also want to slot Fire Cages for Dam/end with a side of accuracy and recharge. Immobilize and move in with Hotfeet. Keep spamming Fire Cages. With that in mind, repel will be very counter-productive.

You've wasted a lot of slots in Siphon Speed. It needs accuracy and recharge. Most slow sets don't provide what you'll want in slow powers.

You've underslotted Fulcrum Shift. Another accuracy and a recharge are needed.

You have a less than significant amount of defense. You'll find it much easier to build for smashing/lethal which will deal with most melee attacks (which is where a fire/kin will be). You have poor endurance recovery for the number of toggles you will be running. You've underslotted a number of key powers and over slotted others.

Really, the build is a mess. A few minutes looking at other's builds and reading the advice given would have avoided many of the problems present.

I fear these shennigans have set back development.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!

You'll have a 10% chance for it to activate on yourself when you cast Phantasm. After that, the Phantasm will have a 10% to activate it on itself with each target hit by Energy Torrent. Unfortunately, pets ignore recharge buffs and enhancements so it will effectively do nothing when it activates.

In my experience, bosses will still be standing in most situations even if you focus a bit of fire on them. Not so much in the early levels, but later on when they boast more than twice the health of a lieutenant, they'll be hard to put down with everyone else. If you're running +2/x8, you're bound to hit a multi-boss spawn as well.

Anyway, I assume, given the OP's original build, that he intends to only use SO's or generics. Personally, I love to frankenslot and use sets, but it doesn't seem like that's quite what he's after.

If you do this on Virtue, I'd gladly tag along though I'm set with my current SG. I've tossed together a few all controller pugs in the past, but it's not something that happens regularly.

I agree with what Max has said about Roots. It is definitely a damage source, and given that you'll be spamming it immobilize duration isn't as important. I like your original slotting of 3 damage, 2 accuracy, 1 end reduction though you might find it efficient to reverse your accuracy and end reduction. Roots and Seeds will definitely be your AoE damage until you get Creepers at 26.

Also, as Local noted, plant is pretty weak for single target damage. Taking Entangle and slotting it for damage isn't a bad idea. It'll also be more endurance efficient to spam if there's only one target left and you want to root it in place for Tornado or Lightning Storm. I also tend to take it because of skipping either Snow Storm or O2 boost (a fine power, it just doesn't suit my playstyle). The single target blast from your epic will also help to finish off stragglers without burning through a lot of endurance.

Looking at your build, I'd say you haven't quite broke away from you Scrapper ways. There's still some slotting here that you may find useful on a scrapper, but it doesn't offer much for a controller. For example, slotting Health gives you one more hit point per second. With controllers' low health cap, that won't help much. There's a bit too much focus on damage as well. Anyway, let's get on to the power-by-power rundown.

Strangler: 2 hold, 2 accuracy, 2 recharge.
You want this up often and you want it to hit and hold.

Seeds of Confusion: 2 confuse, 2 accuracy, 2 recharge.
You gain 13 seconds of duration, and lose 6 seconds of recharge outside of hasten. With hasten up, the difference is only 3 seconds. Go with the mez duration.

Vines: 2 hold, 2 recharge, 2 accuracy.
Because of Seeds, Vines may not seem overly important. However, it is an important emergency power and deserves more than 2 slots.

Carrion Creepers: You've got the right idea there.

Fly Trap: 2 accuracy, 3 damage.
There's no need for recharge on most controller pets, especially since the zone with the caster now. The Fly Trap is a bit soft, but it will generally last long enough to be resummoned should it fall.

Snow Storm: 2 end reduction.
Carrion Creeper's pack enough recharge to floor most enemies. Snow Storm carries the benefit of grounding fliers. I can't say I use it often on my plant/storm, but I did miss it occasionally when I rolled a plant/ff'er.

Freezing Rain: 2 recharge, 2 defense debuff, 2 end. reduction or 3 recharge, 2 defense debuff, 1 end reduction.
Thirty per cent defense debuff is good without a doubt, but it can be better. More defense debuff here means you can go lighter on accuracy in some other powers.

Hurricane: 2 end reduction, 2 tohit debuff.
This is a phenomenal power. With two SO's you're delivering a 42% tohit debuff. With the defense from Steamy Mists, you've essentially softcapped the team. However, it can be tricky to use. It works best indoors, especially on office maps with nice tight corners to jam the enemy into. If you use it poorly, people will complain. If you use it constructively, some people will still complain. Others will sing your praises and you'll all have a good laugh that you don't need a tank.

Tornado: You're slotting here is fine.
I personally find Tornado more disruptive than Hurricane. Once you let it go, you've got to spam your AoE immobilize or face mobs randomly flying around the room. It can be handy to toss out when you've got to beat a retreat though.

Lightning Storm: 3 damage, 2 end reduction, 1 recharge.
Nice for a single tough single target like an AV or EB. Outside of that, you'll find it doesn't have enough of a chance to contribute to most fights unless you're solo. It does bring a lot of damage when it's allowed to punch the same target over and over. The endurance cost is quite hefty.

There are other changes I would suggest as well, but I've already tossed out a lot to consider. Bear in mind, that controllers tend to defeat the enemy comparatively slowly. You'll need to focus on your controls and debuffs to keep you safe while you get that job done.

I'm with DrMike. I'd like to see electric control become the de facto sapping set. I tried an Ele/Ele blaster once, because I had heard that it could offer very strong control for a team. It did but, as others have commented, it was hit or miss. There was also no mitigation until the mobs were completely drained and hit with -recovery. Often I didn't survive to that point.

I would trade off damage for the safety of mezzing a mob then draining their endurance while they're unable fire back. I also like the appeal of end drain working in situations where normal controls fail, the ITF for example.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a single target or AoE sleep in the set. There are a few sleeps present in the electric melee attacks already, and given the added control from endurance drain soft controls could help balance things out.

I also hope the Lightning Field is a part of the set. A source of constant end drain is almost necessary for sapping PVE enemies.

Perfect team? Eight controllers.

It depends on what you're pairing with it. Since the controller damage cap is 400%, you only need to slot what will reliably get you that cap. The proc's are gravy after that. A fire/kin with good recharge can do that fairly well without throwing a lot of damage enhancement into Hot Feet. Using other sets without such a massive damage buff, you may want to slot Hot Feet for more reliable damage.