Monks take a long time to come out, you are just starting to at lvl 26.
Patience is really needed for our class. You will begin to see significant
improvements soon, we get very nice dmg bonuses every 5 lvls, so you will see
another at lvl 30. My guess is that the ranger and palidan had very good
equipment for their lvls. Either they have been twinked or had to spend a
lot of time camping for their equipment. I agree that there are a couple
things that need to be tweaked about monks, mainly a snare or stun. And in
higher lvls, group will really love your FD pulling abilities. I was
recently on a raid of Nagafen and who do you think pulled the FGs in the way?
A monk, not me, but a lvl 49 and 50 monk. Keep with it and you shall soon
see the benefits of monks.

Kanja Dragonfist