Short form, roll with it. Yeah, its a SWAT suit or whatever but its part of what makes the character (especially someone with Rasputin or Daredevil) cool so taking it is like denying a Gunlugger his guns. Just remember the When You Take Harm rolls, the gang vs individual damage changes and that a guy who solves all his problems by being immune to harm is probably also solving them by mass slaughter, which does not make friends. Making AW Seem Real will take care of the rest in terms of how people deal with him.

I was briefly involved in a flooded city game a while back. The stats for things are generic enough that its easy to go boats instead of cars. You just change up some of the descriptors. Chopper would have jet skis, I guess. The main thing to consider in my mind is that transport of some type is a lot more useful in a water game. There's no way you're swimming to the next hold, or anywhere worth going that's above water. So the Driver becomes much more important.

True, but consider this example with you as the player:
You're in a position where you could Go Aggro or Manipulate. Hard is marked, Seduce or manipulate is Instrumented. Which do you do? Do you roll Hot, roll Hard or take the 10+? What if your Hot's really low? Sure, its more complicated than that but its an interesting trade off.

Mind controlling or otherwise influencing PC's has a nice mechanic in the current moves. With the exception of Towering Presence and Go Aggro (advanced, 12+) its always a carrot and stick approach. Either the target PC gets a bonus for going along with it or a penalty for trying not to. So they don't have to do what they're told but there's a +1 or a Mark Experience to encourage it. In my personal experience as a player, this actually makes it fun to be controlled every now and then.

Edit: I'm also probably going to experiment at some demos next month with hold tokens. In a full game they'd have to be color coordinated to keep better track of what is what but it strikes me as a great visual reminder of what you've got waiting to happen. Most PCs are only going to have one type of hold anyway, so it should be more convenient than a pain.

You kinda touched on something there, DWeird, if a bit indirectly. Touchstones are Hard based but most hard moves from other playbooks are about being more badass. Actually, on second check, Fuck This Shit is the main Hard based move. Most of the rest of the Hard type moves are bonus damage, armor, NTBFW or whatever. None of these really goes well with the maternal sort of kickass I have in mind. Touchstones are also weird declined with a universal weird -1 and can get no more than weird=0 with basic advances.

Now the Touchstone effectively has three out of book moves available (Long History plus the two other playbook advances). So I thought "wouldn't it be neat to break the mold and go with Weird." Touchstones naturally want to protect people, so Touched By Death seemed like a really logical choice. First, it gives me the player an incentive to have people in the character's care. After all, they're no use dead otherwise. Second and sort of playing to find out, IF she winds up being really weird, it opens up some unusual possibilities that aren't normally part of a Hard based character's repertoire.

For example - Healing Touch is the obvious choice. But the Touchstone already has Indomitable to control the battlefield. Visions of Death, Scent of Blood and Bonefeel would create an otherworldly presence on the battlefield. Any of the Hocus moves fit the Touchstone touched by Weird (and possibly falling out of Touchstone-ness to be a Hocus for real), especially if they have the followers advance. A Touchstone with a couple of Brainer moves and/or Frenzy and Towering Presence is scary in her ability to motivate (ie control) people without Hot. Which way would I go? Well, it depends on what happens between here and there but it'd make a really weird trip.

Now, trying to step back and imagine being an MC faced with this. Player says:
I want to take Touched By Death so I can take Visions of Death and Bonefeel. (to use that example)
Translation: I would like the MC to visit tragedy on people that my character cares about (and for). A result of this tragedy is that my character now has visions of who will live and who will die when there's a battle (a love note to the MC as the book says) and to be able to spookily appear out of nowhere, ready for whatever situation (I want the MC to drop me in the middle of things).

That's kinda creepy, as I read it. My first warning from my MC self to my Player self is "this is going to SUCK for your character. Touchstones are based on spreading hope and you're asking to have that tested even harder than most Touchstones do."
Now, as MC I don't want to plan too far ahead. No setting up a love interest or whatever with the intention of killing them off. But if the Touchstone's doing plenty of leaping to the rescue and/or Go Aggro/Sieze by force, sooner or later someone's going to target her friends for revenge. Now I don't want to make it too easy. "Jane gets drilled, she's dead, Weird +1". Oh no, its "The bullet goes through her neck, back to front. Not quite the carotid, not quite the throat. There's thick blood pouring out around her hand. Her eyes go wide and her breath hitches as she realizes what's happened. What do you do?"
Does the player drag her feet or run for a medic? Does she try first aid or hold Jane while she dies? And what about that sniper?
If she does die, what's Touched By Death feel like/ What's the link between her departing soul and the psychic maelstrom? What's it feel like to have the curtain pulled back by your best friend's departing spirit as its devoured by the angry ghosts of the other side?

I would just note that in the Touchstone's section of Moves from other playbooks, Battlefield Grace is one of the suggested ones. That's the other caring for others Angel move. That one might make more sense since Indomitable allows for moves that directly protect others from harm. Honestly, I'm on the fence myself. As a rule, though, Weird does seem pretty easy to come by compared to Sharp (for example).

First, a key point or two:

Also, what about abstracting picking pockets as simply a way to increasing barter ? (dont know if it makes sense, though)

Barter is what it costs to live and eat for a month. If your game has a trade medium (gold, bottle caps etc) it might be possible for someone to be carrying 1-barter and not notice it being stolen. Mostly, though, I tend to assume that's at least a good armload of crap. I guess you could pickpocket guns but that's really just Acting Under Fire.

The Brainer doesn't so much rely on tools as the tools either give him a noticeable advantage when using his powers and/or aren't usable by others.

Now, as to a straight out new Thief playbook, I realized a while ago why this wasn't sitting right with me. Let's take your basic D&D classes, just the real bare bones:
Fighter/the violent guy - Designed strictly for hitting and getting hit. As they level you can specialize them for sword and shield, two handed, archery etc etc.
Thief/sneaky guy - uses stealth and wits to solve problems. Has tons and tons of skills and can either be OK at all of them or good at about half. Can sneak, bluff, climb walls, pick locks, pick pockets, attack from surprise etc etc.
Priest/healer guy - Let's just say that the Hocus covers the religion and the Angel covers the healing for now.
Mage/Smart magic guy - has tons upon tons of spells. May or may not focus on one particular school. Can do lots of things really well (buff, debuff, direct attack) but takes some time to get it done.

You'll notice that all of these are so general that none of them makes an appropriate AW class. Sure, Gunlugges and Facelesses are Fighters but they're very specific, very distinct types of fighters. Arguably, Choppers, Hardholders and even Touchstones are Fighter based, too. However, all of them have a much narrower focus. They have one hook, so to speak, and go from there. The gunlugger has a big fraggin' gun. The Faceless is an unstoppable psycho killer.

So sure, start from sneaky wits using guy. But then narrow it down. What's this playbook's one gimmick. Are they so cool its a weapon? That's a battlebabe. Do they do jobs for the Guild? That's an Operator. Are they specifically focused on catching people unawares and killing them? THAT's a concept that could probably be fleshed out to fit AW. It might be a fighter or a thief in the D&D paradigm but that doesn't much matter. What matters is that they've got enough focus to merit a capitalized title, The Wraith maybe.

TL;DR - AW playbooks are more like prestige classes than basic D&D classes. Pick a specific hook or gimmick and go with it.