I'd take the eth rare phase blade all day and even some eth rare Zerker Axes(but I'm not going by 1.07, so I might be off).
You can roll mods that are unbelievably phenomenal. You can roll an eth PB style and upgrade it to PB still Ethereal and not need the repair durability mod or can get the mod/Zod a Zerk Axe.
You can get 450% Enhanced damage on a rare item, that is ethereal and has 2 open sockets. You can land on 40% IAS as a mod. You can land extremely helpful things like fool's mod, with cruel damage at 300% ED, one of fhe few massive sources for attack rating and a good boost to maximum damage numbers. For builds that need AR, Fool's+Cruel is king. If AR isn't needed, the full ED stack that can reach 450 is best. But both would need eth/repair mod, 2 sockets, ias up to 40 or what you need, either nice boost of attack rating or the 300ed+fools style and a few others. With claws, you want 300ed/fool's and some valuable skills added. Scepters can also land some nice pally skills on them, plus all those mods.
Last I knew there were several rare weapons that were ethereal, that pushed the limits on either max ED or 300%Cruel+Fool's, and came out as a superior weapon to all the runewords(except Grief). But those types of items are so mind bogglingly rare, I wouldn't expect to stumble across them on Single Player anytime soon. Most people believe they are usually imported to bnet, others just from mass bots running across servers all day. They are also more popular on bnet because of Grief being BM in duels with venom. But you can
I did once find a rare normal style of the mat bow, with cruel mod I bekieve into the low 400's%ED, 20-40%IAS, 2 open sockets, AR, %CTC Amplify Damage, Attack Rating and I forgot other mods or how many +bowskills. I found it legitimately on bnet and traded it off. It had the CTC amp and another mod that made it BM for dueling, but was a cool find nack in the day.
Grief in a PB typically trumps all with damage and lack of repairing. But a rare eth with self repair+300ed+fools mad+2 socket for Lo/Ed-ias/Ohm/Eth/Jah/Ber or whatever you need depending on running monsters versus dueling, is also awesome and some forms I've been told are actually the best in slot, mainly in dueling. The rare obviously has for more bonus points for looks and sexiness. The odds of finding one remotely close to having the top end stats needed, is virtually impossible though lol. So if someone has one on the Single Player forums, it was probably created, does not exist yet or will never swap hands. So rare that most people with them online get accused of paying stores to create and import them.
I have an ethereal, everything perfect but 2% off on the ED, Heaven's Light, that I plan to try out on my Zealer if I come across a Zod. I know my Grief is better, but gotta go for sexy points, like with some of the crazy rare/ethereal items. I'd buy up or trade for ethereal rares with 290+ED/fool's or 400+ cruel+secondary ED mod, if people actually had them and wanted to trade.
Sorry this post was a jumbled, night time, falling asleep mess...lol.