I was pruning again today. Still have plenty more to do but the whole bed along the side of the house is done. It was still chilly this morning, a crust of ice was on the birdbath water. I waited until afternoon and it warmed up. The spring pruning is lots of work because I have lots of HTs and those of course need lots of pruning. But I prune down everything including my Floribundas and shrub roses. Doesn't make much difference on HTs, they just grow tall no matter what but on the Floribundas and shrub roses it does encourage them to grow nice and thick and twiggy instead of tall and lanky. Most of the HTs are on Dr Huey but I did order some roses two years ago that were grafted on Multifloria. I noticed that they grew much slower than the ones grafted on Dr Huey. So I did not cut them back quite as much. Also, this is a very unscientic observation but the ones on Multiflora have no canker and did not really NEED to be cut back while the HTs on Dr Huey always have lots of canker canes and need a strong prunning in the spring. As they are all treated all the same and planted in the same beds I do not know what else it could be but rootstock.

I would go ahead now and prune them. I have pruned mine already afew days ago and its still early here. Chilly but the leaf buds are starting to swell. I have found that roses love to be pruned and jump right back with plenty of healthy new growth and lots of bloom.

You want to prune when the plants are dormant - like now :-) San Michelle actually prunes their vines earlier, as soon as the leaves fall (onset of dormancy), as the prunings are made available for Christmas decor (wreath making). Be sure to look at the diagrams related to pruning on that link - in addition to leaving the trunk intact, you want to also leave a portion of the existing lateral branches (with buds) to provide the foundation for new growth.

You're seeing the black spores where the disease overwinters. All the hideous reddish-orange sporangia don't overwinter. Those sporangia have hundreds of spores each. The black specks, if you had a microscope would look like two conical magician hats, glued together at their base. Those are two deuterospores and getting them away from your roses is a necessity. I don't know if a winter coating of your roses' canes will help; you need local knowledge as to how to keep the canes and buds / leaf axils clean through winter and into spring.