Suggestions on what kind of changes I believe Crane needs
With the way DBO Crane functions right now, aside from extra damage on their Fan out skills/Rapid/Spirit ball weapon upgrade's meaningless for Crane. Sure with a +15 fan as Siren/Sendoku have demonstrated you can kill MAs pretty quickly without the use of the DoTs, however most players that you'll be encountering on Solo budokai are SKs, Dendes, DWs, and sometimes Turtle Hermit rendering weapon upgrade to be as viable as dex is for Turtles. I personally believe Daneos should make Crane DoTs work in a similar fashion as Bold strike's bleed does, "279% Bleeding damage". That way Crane's aren't so overpowered that they can completely bypass their adversaries defense and kill them, while at the same time giving them an incentive to upgrade their weapons. I think thousand slashes should stay the way it is right now, if you want it to pack a strong punch use power rp as Daneos intended Cranes to do. The point of Cranes in pvp is play defensively while slowly draining their opponents health, they've already got a debuff that cuts a portion of their opponents health which i believe is more than good enough in both PvE and PvP.
Crane's lack of instant RP orb skill
RP regen wise, if you have the right kind of gear that shouldn't even be a factor that you have to worry about. The second you sleep your opponent you can charge as many RP balls as you want; Land your combos correctly, and you'l be able to sleep your enemies again to regain your RP orbs. Is it unfair that Crane doesn't have a skill that gives them an RP orb instantly? Debatable, is it fair that Crane's DoTs bypass your opponents defense? Once again also debatable.
Do Crane's need instant CC?
If you were to give Cranes a instant stun what would you give them? Lost in time won't accomplish anything, it's just another 35m paralyze move, paralysis is very easily countered by competitive players. So if confusion, and Paralysis are useless I say give them a stun. A stun that lasts for roughly 3-5 seconds with a 0.5 second cast time, that way it's still possible to cancel it, but it doesn't so long that it'd be as worthless as their other CCs. If they successfully land the stun the Crane will receive a 350 poison(stackable) side effect that lasts for 30 seconds, that way they can't abuse it to win via timer. Despite the annoying DoT draining the Crane's health per use, it will at least give you the small window to Sleep/Freeze lock your opponent thus most of the time giving you the win(assuming you don't screw anything up).