If you really hate the whole spec game, going Pariah is not a bad option at all.
The whole deity and alignment stuff is actually a really cool system. I can't believe something like it wasn't put into live, but SoD does a pretty good job of making it interesting. Really, I only see 2 glaring issues:
1. Unfinished aug quests. This causes a pigeon hole effect for certain deities and pariah.
2a. Considering the amount of time/effort the game requires gamers to put into a char, I think it would be nice to be able to swing alignment fully back and forth from maximums (given a ton of questing.)
2b. I think it should be possible to shift deities as many times as you want given some specific criteria for that to occur. (Aug is removed when changing of course.)
The whole make a choice and live with it unless you start a new character is for hard core mode. Being locked out of content due to deity is kind of dumb, and being forced to not be as cool if you choose to not get locked out is kind of dumb. I also think it would add diversity for the players to pick different dieties. I bet a bunch of people would switch from pariah and do the questing for alignment/augs of a deity they find useful/fun.
Maybe these ideas don't give a lot of bang for the buck or aren't in the vision, but I think the alignment/deity system is one of the things that sets SoD apart from Live/EMUs. Anything that can make it better and more dynamic is useful.
When I think of SoD quest arcs, the major ones I think of before raid type quests are:
Main Quest - This is finished, functional..
Faction Aug - Finished? (I've only done just past HFB), functional.
Deity Aug/Alignment work - Fun, Interesting, but has holes and is not finished.
I'm going to drop it now