It's complete garbage, but you only tested 4 piece?
Six piece gives you up to +100% attack speed. Were you using sweep or shield bash? If shield bash, do you have a piro marella? Some more information is needed.
I tested 4 piece because that is all I have on a seasonal character and he mentioned he had a few pieces, but not all. I also tested sweep because shield bash just feels bad to use, kind of like furious charge for barbs (haven't played barb since patch, so I don't know how it is right now). I feel like testing just the 4 piece is perfectly acceptable because its mainly about seeing how much damage you do with the abilities, once you know the number you can just double it to know your dps at full stacks with a full set.
I will say this though, with just Gyrfalcon's Foote and Jekangbord you can easily outperform a 4 piece Roland's. I also don't think 6 piece would be that much better, I was mainly testing the damage, and even without the increased attack speed I was having issues with wrath, and that is with 35%+ CDR, unstoppable force laws of valor, and ~27% RCR. Even from what I am reading on the forums if you want to use Roland's you are better off using 3 pieces with 3 pieces of Akkhans and a RoRG.
I think I might have the plan for the shield you mentioned and I will test shield bash tonight and report back to the thread.
I imagine that being able to drop bosses stupid fast using shield bash/pound would be very doable with roland's set.
using bash/cross on mobs should also prove pretty fabulous.
I can see it maybe not working as great in grifts since you can't switch skills around, but the cross should be plenty powerful. I'm leveling a crusader with friends, so it will be a good while before I get to even start looking for end-game set items. I'm just not convinced that the set is garbage, especially when you're only talking about an incomplete set.
The set is just pretty bad in general because the full bonus doesn't allow you to drop your primary. I see no benefit at all over Akkhans set. The 4 piece is good for about T2-T3. You can go higher if you have dual unity + immortal follower but at those torment levels primaries are a liability and it wouldn't be efficient at all. They just don't do enough damage.
TL;DR - You simply cannot move up past about torment 3 and be efficient if you still have to use primaries, and the full set bonus will force you to keep a primary.
EDIT: From doing some more reading/watching videos it seems there are a few people who still use primary attacks at higher torment levels, but they are not nearly as effective as the people who can drop the primary completely.