Rose was a great singles hitter...average in everything else. He played long enough to break Cobb’s record, and played most of his games on astro-turf, which no doubt accounted for a lot of those singles.
That is an entirely different argument, but you are dead-on. For a time, he could hit in in the alleys and give you the occasional home run, but he was pretty limited the last 1/3 of his career. He was also a below-average fielder, though he was very versatile and made up for some of his shortcomings with his hustle.
All told, I think Pete squeezed more mileage out of his talent than anyone who ever played.