And you see them right - except you have you locker pantry stocked for dwarves. Mine is all choked up with vicious reward junk - some because I don't want to go through places again, codex and cauldron for testing, fabulous treasure because it's so unique (it's not that strong, thb), trisword for fast-forwarding through rogue PQI's and cb for testing. Only thing I really want in there is the ward.
(And I don't favour rogues, I'm actually in a glyph heavy phase this time around. Big damage is what I'm gettin from most other people. I just know how it works, and use cheese to get past really tricky stuff. Also, I'm not that min-maxy as a rule, and generally go through my dwarf anti-sinergy runs. I only started cheezing them because I got tired.)
With old Absolution (and vineform) dwarves could work regardless of class. Which to me is saying they can actually work - they also really do get a big bunch of health per level! But their downsides could be shored up to make them more attractive, and probably wouldn't be overkill. I mean - I played them quite a bit during all that PQI
The "getting only max health when they convert" thing is practicaly a glitch, that should be changed in any case IMO. But as far as buffs go, the one I suggested points in the "health based spiker" direction and probably wouldn't be overkill, but would at least make them more interesting. It's possible that they are underplayed rather than underpowered, but they certanly need to be a bit more interesting.