Survival Hunt vs full dps spellcasters (Lock, Priest, etc)?

I've been enjoying survival hunt because of the great utility, but I struggle in duels against warlocks and priests that are lower geared than I am. It seems that they simply out dps me, and most of my cc feels worthless except for the occasional interrupt. My stuns (scatter shot, wyvern sting, ice trap), which are interrupted upon damage, seem to hurt me more than it hurts them because of the heavy DOTs and pet dps. The only hope seems to be to stay on the edge of my range where they cant hit me but I can hit them. Unfortunately, the priest can then easily hide behind a corner and heal. This sounds better against warlocks, but I haven't really had the opportunity to try this tactic.

I acknowledge that MM is definitely better for this type of gameplay than survival hunters, but I really enjoy this spec and want to stick to it.

Should I be going into closer range to attempt to deadzone them? Or is long-range the answer? Or should I get away while I can and stick to harassing prot pallies?

You cant outrange casters - casting range most spells - 41m. To be on pair that (pair, not better!) you need take all(!) 3 Hawk Eye talent (+2m to range). Also casters NOT HAVE deadzone like hunters.

The design of Survival and BM specs so bad in WOTKL(at end of addon)...In 100 best players ladder(actual time) only was 5 hunters and all of them - MM.

Blizz make a promise to change it in next addon (and they do that) but on freeshards no progress to others addons, so all hunters in WOTLK will choose MM or suffer again and again from this blizz mistakes in design.

With better items gap between MM and other specs also increase drastically.