[Carson Drayke]

Sure, 13 levels of rogue opens up Epic Dodge which is very nice and 16 levels gives you Crippling Strike, which is useful too. Take enough fighter to get bonus feats, since you need 6 for WM (and your swashbuckler may be focusing on Dex so you'd need a 7th for Finesse and possibly more for dual-weapons).

I like the same sort of characters and wasn't a powergamer, but it's surprisingly easy to turn to the dark side. Biggest thing is to map out your character in advance, what you're going to do with feats and abilities (usually pouring all increases into Str or Dex, whatever your AB stat is).

Or, what is a little less daunting is to ignore all of that, build something just to get in there and decide as you go what you want to change next time. It doesn't take long to build half a dozen characters to level 40, so you might as well just learn as you go and start over when you want to.