Good read. I used to play Uranus a lot before the rework. I still play him when I need to tank, but as you stated, he's become very lackluster. And I honestly never really adapted to the rework. I still built skill 2 up first. So imma change that up now and see how it goes as well as his build :)
I've been going back and forth on which skill to level up first. It doesn't seem to matter that much either way if you go for a full tank build. But if you do a hybrid build with Truncheon or Talisman, definitely max out skill 2 first.