I've Puged with far too many bad players to really enjoy it. I refuse to play healer in one, actually. Clerics and Favored Souls are known as the two classes most capable of soloing any content on normal. So for them, I solo. I'm more willing to take the front line role though, with a Paladin or Monk. Never play any of the other melee roles.
Though I have ran my Paladin through a lot of content on Elite. Some people are so hardcore that they solo everything on elite and epic. It's not something that is easy in the most remote sense of the word; and if you can solo anything elite at your level then you're doing pretty darn good.
Rangers are actually very good for damage. They're not just for ranged combat; the core of the class is one who "ranges or wanders", much like Aragorn. They get the entire TWF feat tree for free, giving you room for extra feats like Khopesh and Oversized TWF (which eliminates penalties for using medium weapons in the off hand). They get one of the best AC buff spells Barkskin, as it stacks with everything else. Natural AC, rather than Shield, Deflection, or regular Armor bonuses that everything else gets.
Read up on the Exploiter build. Monk/Rogue/Ranger, can use heal scrolls, top in DPS, and solid AC with the right equipment. Plus they get Evasion, which is so nice to have that Monk and Rogue splashes are very common.
I think the build takes 12 levels of Ranger, to get Tempest II and the last TWF feat, and max Barkskin out, 1 Level of Rogue for skills (UMD), the rest in Monk for Unarmored AC, Disease Immunity (at 6 IIRC), WIS to AC, etc... And can just use a good pair of handwraps, which also take advantage of TWF, but give access to the Monk Stances as well.
Aggro is drawn BY damage per second. The more damage you do, the more likely you'll get attacked. Intimidate can draw aggro to you as well. That's why S&B isn't particularly great for tanking; you don't have the damage to keep them swinging at you! I think that's why TWF Khopesh is so popular; the Khopesh hits for a critical more often, and a pair of them with burst effects can churn out some good damage potential.
I've found that a good Command or Sound Burst will be more effective "healing" than any amount of Cure x Wounds. The examples being the two Large Earth Elementals we took out, and being able to negate all damage with a single 10sp spell. I can nail even casters fairly regularly with Command, though usually I'll hit them with Soundburst if there's a group around them instead. Potentially lnocking out 3 or 4 foes cuts back on damage taken. Once, I knocked out three Giants in Redwillow's Ruins, and I was level 5 when I went in there.
Of course, there were 4 more chasing me, but still. My dog had long since be stomped flat so I had nothing to draw aggro away from me with.