Akali does stupid amounts of burst dmg once you get lvl 6. I max Crescent first because I use it to farm faster and I harrass with that and shadow dance in a lane. If they don't back enough I shadow dance, crescent, and mark which can hopefully finish them off after the autoattack. If not, rinse and repeat. I never have problems with waiting for a shadow dance stack or whatever you want to call it.

I do think it's a bit annoying that you need to use your Shadow Essences just in order to deliver that melee attack to proc the Mark.. then again, I always get Rylais. Health, ap and a slow. Awesome.

Sure, whoever states that those who QQ about Akali just aren't playing how she's meant to be played is correct.
They're just not playing her like a hard assassin.

The problem is, "how she's meant to be played" is not that great in the game of LoL.
Assassins had more effectiveness in DotA where snowballing was ridiculous. But with LoL's anti-snowballing measures and the fact that Soulstealer/Occult do not work with Akali's passive makes her a terrible character to have in the team.

Sure, a good Akali may be able to get 5 kills early game and get pretty strong. But when the team fights starts happening, she's toast.