It is incredibly short-sighted to think barbs are the weakest end game character. Properly geared, hell, even equally geared vs ranged (DH,wiz,WD) barbs die maybe 1/10 of the time b/c of the superior tanking skills and 30% dr.
Frankly, i think that 30% will be revisited in a few months.
His observation of the barb is no different than your observation of the barb both opinion based and both true.
In my Opinion the barb is both the best and the worst class at the same time. Its the worst because there is no doubt that it is gear dependent. A Range class can get a 900 DPS 1 Hander on the AH for like 100,000 and be good to go all the way to act 3 of Inferno. A barb can't do the same. He'll need an entire set to head out with will be a million easy.
But a good geared Barb can solo Diablo far better than other classes.
Barb will get better after the patch as well because Better gear drops sooner. So you'll be able to use Hell Gear to be playable in Inferno....where before the patch you almost had to use the AH to gear up enough to not die in inferno.
I still feel that overall Ranged classes are better and Blizzard likely feels the same based on the patch. They increased the mortar maximum Range and made them not hit close range. They reduced damage on all inferno monsters past act 1 and barb and monk get hit the most so this impacts them the most.
Monk and Barb are much better after the patch.