I don't believe that rogue drones are evolved to a human level of consciousness yet. Mostly animal instincts (through hive minds) and an emerging consciousness that seem to think like a little child / infant most of the time, depending on the hives.
Unless though, of course, some hidden rogue drone societies exist somewhere else that are a lot more evolved than the clunky, hungry things we see in missions and all around ingame...
Trying to compare Rogue Drones to a "human level" is a terrible, terrible mistake. Instead, try considering them as an alien race that evolved... somewhere else. "Incomprehensible" is an apt descriptor. Totally different value system, thinking process, priorities, etc. Learning speed that outstrips ours by such ridiculous magnitudes that a single lowly drone could in ten seconds complete what for a human would be a lifetime of study and experimentation.
If we're gauging the power of their intellect, they can open spatial anomalies with their "minds" while we glorious capsuleers can at best amount to piloting armed lunchboxes toward them with our comparably pitiful capsule-dependent gray matter.
Oh, and if you were a newly birthed sentient species fleeing in fear from your vengeful creator, would you hang out in solar systems where they live? Or perhaps... some place in between... in my imagination, the rogues we encounter are the most rudimentary scuttling calculators, sent out as vanguards and scouts by some distant, malign and absolutely bizarre intellect, meant to get shot and die to allow said intellect to figure out how our weapons work.
I don't disagree with that. That's precisely my point.
They are extremely specialized, as you say, computing power, learning curve, opening spacial anomalies in a glimpse, etc.
I sure see them as a very alien mind and entity. As I said I also can easily imagine they have hidden masterminds somewhere and what we see are only stupid, retarded minions.
However what I also see in the canon is that some people have the code to control them just like that, making them helpless. I was specifically refering to these retarded minions we see ingame, not the wider entity we can imagine behind.