Watching Rogue harp at Gambit in X-Men 2 made me cringe, not because it was wrong or annoyed me, but because I don't trust any of the current writers to portray them properly.. to Duggan's credit, this wasn't bad. Gambit was doing something fairly in character. I think it'd make more sense for him to be divorced from Excalibur completely for continuity sake, but this was fine as long as it doesn't become a running joke.
Gambit will probably never get his fair shake while being written by someone who doesn't care. He's a fan favorite that needs to be balanced properly to work, otherwise he's no more than gimmick. Tini might be a fine writer if she had an editor to direct her and was allowed to pull in characters for her book that make sense i.e. Pixie, Selene, Emplate, Forge, Magik and Colossus (on a stretch). Gambit is in no way in this vein.
Neither are Jubilee or Rictor prior to his arrival, which still was very forced and creepy (his fixation on Apocalypse - something we saw in AoA which ended in a gruesome death at Apocalypse's hand... Literally).