Yes, numbers can easily be skewed as you showed. That's why I talk about average foes and not specific groups. If one uses Illusory Ambush versus Brutes in their examples like you did, one can misrepresent Illusory Ambush to make it look real good.
Your Tarrasque example is a bit of a joke. Sure, the Wizard can easily give the Tarrasque a -2 to hit. But he would NEVER EVER do that until late in the combat. First off, he should not readily know that he has a 95% chance to hit the Tarrasque and only a 45% chance to hit the Ancient Red Dragon.
Secondly, he would throw most of his Per Encounter and Daily powers at the Tarrasque and only when he was done doing that would he ever consider using Illusory Ambush.
And, the Tarrasque can give the Wizard a -5 to AC. Suddenly, the Tarrasque is +3 to hit the Wizard. And, the Tarrasque can walk right through the Defender's square in order to get to the Wizard (and it is unlikely that the Wizard could ever Fly out of reach due to Earthbinding). Or, the Tarrasque could attack the Wizard with a Tail Slap and it's +32 to hit Fort attack -2 due to Illusory Damage will still hit the super AC super Int Wizard ~80+% of the time (the Wizard cannot maintain great Defenses across the board).
Yup, the -2 is very helpful in this scenario. This scenario.
But, these are not average encounters. For the 1 in 5 encounters where Illusory Ambush is slightly better (much better chance to hit, but still less damage and still infrequent chance to protect the party with the -2 to attacks boon), there are 4 encounters (and especially the 1 minion encounter) where Cloud of Daggers wipes the floor with Illusory Ambush. The reason is that the chance to hit is about the same between the two in these majority cases, but Cloud of Daggers does more damage. Dead foes do not need a 1 in 16 chance of putting a -2 to hit on them.
Sorry, but offense trumps defense in 4E for the most part. It's all about economy of actions. It's often better to kill 1 foe than it is to damage or hinder 3 foes (unless one can hinder them to the point that they cannot do counterattack actions).
The main advantage that PCs have over NPCs is that when NPCs gang up on a single PC, that PC can be healed and can still fight. When PCs gang up on a single NPC, it typically cannot be healed and eventually just falls. So, NPCs rarely decrease the number of PCs they are fighting from round to round whereas PCs often decrease the number of NPCs they are fighting from round to round.
It's all about economy of actions.
When NPCs do manage to decrease the number of PCs they are fighting from round to round, that's typically when TPKs (or semi-TPKs if some PCs run away) occur.
One PC falling is not often that big of a deal, but when 2 or 3 fall, things can turn real bad for the PCs real quick. Just like it does once most of the NPCs fall in the opposite direction.
I did not say that Illusory Ambush was useless. I said it was on average suboptimal. Same for Ray of Frost (which is even more on average suboptimal than Illusory Ambush).
There are always going to be scenarios where one At Will power is preferable to any other. Magic Missile wipes the floor up on all of the other At Wills if the Wizard stays 11+ squares away from his foes (at least from the POV of the Wizard, maybe not from the POV of the entire party).
One thing people forget is that in order to get to super PCs and wipe out the Tarrasque, the PCs have to do a few things first:
1) Wipe out ~290 encounters before getting to 30th level, the vast majority of these where Cloud of Daggers helps combat more than either Ray of Frost or Illusory Ambush.
2) Somehow survive all of these encounters (i.e. no TPKs). For the 20 Int Wizard, sure, he is throwing out strong attacks (I am playing a 20 Int Wizard, so I know, 20 Int does >20% more damage than 18 Int). It also means that at least one and possibly two of the Wizard's other Defenses are suboptimal (the Wizard can only bump 2 stats up on most bump up levels and there are a lot of ability score prerequisites to craft a Super Wizard). For example, the mega-AC 50 Wizard that you are talking about has to give something up in order to get a Heavy Shield and Hide Armor. Str and Con do not grow on trees.
3) The PCs have to have all of these magical items that people doing comparisons so easily hand out. But, if you check the DMG magic item hand out system, this is not the case. A party of 5 just made level 30 this morning PCs if given the recommended items (over many levels) would each have:
2 level 30 items, 1 level 29 item, 1 level 28 item, 1 level 27 item, 1 level 26 item, etc. (assuming they use most of their cash to craft/purchase items as well, otherwise they would have 0.8 level 29, 28, 27 etc. items each).
Will a level 29 Wizard always have +6 Starleather armor, or might he have +6 Feyleather armor? Or, might he have +5 Feyleather armor because he has not yet been able to find Starleather and this armor is the best he had 3 levels ago?
Giving PCs the best equipment and the best feats and the best stats does not make for a sound POV.
That might happen is some games, but I suspect that most DMs do not hand out the optimal items at every single level. Even following the DMG guidelines does not result in optimal items all of the time.
Not all players will be playing mega-PCs. Sure, they will pick good items and feats and ability scores, but they won't be optimized across the board. Want a high Int Wizard, one gives up Fort Defense. Want a high AC Wizard, one gives up Wisdom or Int. Pros and Cons.
Want Illusory Ambush to wipe out weak Will opponents? Fine. You don't get to wipe out quite as many Minions or Leaders or Elites as quickly.
Again, Pros and Cons.
This is why it is always better to talk about average scenarios when discussing powers. Any given power can shine in any given scenario, but it might be drastically suboptimal to another power on average.
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But, yeah, he might have +5 feyleather.
