It's true in the later levels, but they're very useful in the early levels. I always take the second personal attack at level 2. Otherwise you spend a long time waiting for your one henchman to finish up. :P
@Celestial Lord and @Celestial Lord Too
At level 41 on one mastermind and 19 on another, I have never needed personal attacks.
But that's probably because I'm immersed in the role of giving orders and standing there like a menacing evil person.
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The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
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Eh I always pick up one, just for something to do when I'm not debuffing. Also good for when you need to set up pulls early game and dont have either a toggle or the end to set up ambushes. Opinions differ on it tho
Now we aren't ready quite yet to let the catgirls out of the bag.... (quote from ex libris)
I find shouting, "You suck Tank Swiper! You can't swipe DIDDLY! My grandmother could hit harder than YOU! You stink worse than her too! Dillhole!" and other things like that work better than the offensive primary powers you have access to as a MM.
After say...level 16 that is. Before that they do help a little.
I've always thought a Mastermind with attacks becomes something between a 4th Minion Henchman and a 3rd Lieutenant Henchman. Sometimes that is pretty useless and pathetic but sometimes it can be used with great effect. Some of my MMs take attack and some do not. I've found powers like Air Superiority and others with secondary effects to be incredibly useful. It's nice to have a pet (well yourself) who knows how to use attacks with secondary powers on targets.
Personal attacks are always usefu-
Oh wait, you mean the actual powers in the game. Nevermind.
I always take 1 attack, just to add a lil extra firepower, and its usually the 2nd, for Mercs, I take Slug, it hits HARD and knocks the target around, same with 'Bots. With Thugs, I think Dual Wield a MUST, just to show off the guns. lol Doing knockDOWN helps too.
The ones I worry about are the ones that take ALL 3 attacks ... and then wonder why they're always out of ammo.
OH and every so often, somebody on the team says, "we need to PULL". Who better to draw aggro then a Mastermind? 
Shigeru Miyamoto "A delayed game will eventually be good, a bad game is bad forever."
I've taken one attack before, and respec out of it as soon as I could. The power pools are much better of an option if you want to pick up another power. Assault, Hurdle, combat jump.
From 1-10, of course, it can be a good half of your damage. At 12, when you pick up your first Tier 2, it becomes more like 1/4, depending on the Set. (Enforcers start doing way more damage, but Protector Bots don't) Although you'd think at 18, when you get a third Tier 1, their damage would go up, in fact it doesn't. When you get more at a given tier, they each are lower level, so their total damage doesn't really change. Thus, your big changes are at 6, when you get Equip, 12, when you get Tier 2, 26, when you get Tier 3, and 32, when you get Upgrade.
There is a stretch from around 18 to 24 where a Mastermind's damage is at the lowest it will ever be. (Compared to your targets) Although the damage an MM can do with any single attack is only about 16% of what your henchmen can do in this range, I still encourage players to take them because you need every drop of damage you can squeeze out if you intend to solo. You can always respec out of the attacks later, and you don't have to take all three of them to make an appreciable difference. (Vet Reward powers like the Nemesis Staff and Sands of Mu can also make a huge difference, and if you don't have those yet, you can always go to the Market and buy a recipe for a Revolver)
If you do take all 3 attacks, you will probably need Stamina to pay the End cost. It is probably better to take only two of them, and slot them really well, with Endurance as well as damage. Remember, you can always respec later to get the slots back.
Once you get your Tier 3 at 26, your share of the damage drops considerably. You probably can't do more than 25% of what your henchmen are doing, even with all three attacks fully slotted. After 32, there is no comparison, all your henchmen start doing much more damage, and your contribution is no longer needed. Still, it can be helpful to keep one of the attacks around to finish off foes that are in the red, or to knock them down.
It can also help to use attacks following a Provoke to draw even more aggro, if you are using the Tankermind strategy. I've often said I wish MM attacks could be slotted for Taunt like Tanker and Brute attacks, only they would have no Taunt effect if not slotted for it at all. That way you could choose if you wanted to use them as part of a Tankermind strategy, but wouldn't be putting yourself at risk by using your attacks if you use your henchmen more aggressively.
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you can always go to the Market and buy a recipe for a Revolver
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I thought these were all taken out of the game... was I wrong? Can I still find craftable weapons? Or did you just crawl out from under a rock? tee hee 
On my TA and Dark MM's I have plenty to do and also have plenty of ways of "grabbing" attention for BG mode. On my second account my Pain MM does not have vet attacks and finds a personal attack useful for pulling. made it though the low levels without an attack but now I like to stay in BG, so it's either use up a power pool on the Presence pool or take an MM attack.
Poisonous Ice 50 Ice/Rad
Icy Jax 50 Ice/SS
Jaxon Penn 50 Shield/Mace
Cpt Clax 50 Thugs/Dark
Lady BlackIce 50 Dark/Cold
Lady Black Ice 50 Dark/Ice
Bella Jax 50 Storm/Sonic
Operative Jax 50 SoA
Level 50 Trick Arrow Alts
TA/A-Plant/TA-Bots/TA
Level 50 Claws Scrappers
SR-Regen-DA-Invul-WP-FA
There are several reasons to take at least one personal attack:
<ul type="square">[*]They significantly boost damage at early levels, especially if you lack veteran attacks (you can always respec later)[*]They're the only way to have a character pull out dual pistols or a laser rifle[*]At any level they do still add some damage, so if you have nothing better to spend time and endurance on and can spare a power choice or two (I'm looking at you, Force Field) why not?[/list]On the other hand, if you have a tight build they're the first thing to dump to free up space. They also use a lot of endurance for mediocre damage, so you're normally better off using your secondary if it's an active one. Veteran attacks are also better than the MM personal attacks, especially if you have +accuracy or defense debuffs to insure they hit. The only time I'd consider taking all three is on /FF... and that's just to have something to do other than spam Force Bolt.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: Do you have time to use them, endurance to power them, and room for them in your build? If you answered yes to all three, go for it. If not, skip them. 
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
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I thought these were all taken out of the game... was I wrong? Can I still find craftable weapons? Or did you just crawl out from under a rock? tee hee
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I suppose it could have been taken out of the game, but the last time I played my Ninja MM, I went to the store and bought her a new Revolver. This was at least within the last couple of months. I have two characters that I keep normally equipped with a Revolver. (Concept reasons...)
They're actually quite cheap, I place orders for the recipes at 5000 apiece, and I can usually get 2 or 3 to keep on hand until I need them.
There is a situation where I would advocate working a particular attack into your build: If your primary is Necromancy, and your secondary isn't either Dark Miasma or Pain Domination.
Under that situation, working Life Drain into your build - and treating it as a self heal - would be potentially quite useful. True, it isn't as effective as Aid Self, but it also doesn't require an additional power selection.
-This Space Intentionally Left Blank.-
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I know that beefing up one's flunkies is the main priority of a MM, but how do people feel about taking personal attacks as a MM? Many guides I've read stated that taking personal attacks is a waste of a power choice, how true is that?
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Those guides are somewhat obsolete. Simple math, pointed out by Jade Dragon about a year ago or so, says that the attacks at low levels actually add quite a bit of damage, because you don't have all your pets yet.
Below level 20 or so, take them. Around level 24, I found them fairly useless. with 5 pets and SOs at that point, the time and endurance spent on attacking just wasn't cutting it.
So at 24 I recommend you use your second build and rebuild your character with out the personal attacks. Usually my Jet Pack is running out around then, so usually I add in my travel power at that point.
I've actually found that my ninja mms first 2 archery skills (the ranged ones) are still quite useful even at 29.
Mind you, my secondary is pain, so I'm mostly healing (and getting the decent share pain damage buff every so often that makes arrows even more useful.)
I only have the first attack on my bots mm as I'm usually using storm powers (and the odd repair.)
Before pain, my answer would have always been no, but you can have a constant 72.1% damage buff with pain and -resistance on top of that. I'm going to go with gloom/dark blast on my necro/pain instead of taunt because I should be able to far outdamage my pets (singularly) and keep any boss's or AV's attention on myself.
Yeah that's a fair point. /Pain seems to provide a good reason for keeping your personal attacks.
I'm /FF but I play my secondary very actively. I'm always force bolting something or trying to pin a bunch of mobs in a corner with Force Bubble. I don't really have time for attacks, and no way to boost them anyway. Other secondaries play differently. If attacks work for you, go for it.
I know that beefing up one's flunkies is the main priority of a MM, but how do people feel about taking personal attacks as a MM? Many guides I've read stated that taking personal attacks is a waste of a power choice, how true is that?