I have some questions that aren't why why nots.
When it comes to Thief, were there anythings the dev teams wanted to add based on previous FF titles but couldn't fit into the realm of XI? (Like stealing things from enemies hurting/killing them, ala Riku + Machine parts) Later you added Despoil, which felt like something you might have wanted THF to have from the beginning.
When it came to SMN, was there any debate on making it a heavily focused pet job vs making Summoner a nuking job and Summons perform more like traditional FF Titles, such as casting Magic and they would appear > do damage > Disappear like in other FF titles? Similar to how Alexander and Odin work. It just feels like Alex/Odin were maybe a remnant of what SMN could have been.
On the topic of RDM, did you ever think RDM would become the absolute king of Solo like it did at the 75 cap? Were you impressed by some of the things RDMs did back then? (especially one specific Taru). Also, when it came to RDM, did you envision it as a Melee-mage from the beginning or did you expect people to adopt it as a healer/support job it became today?
A non-job related topic. Did you guys ever consider adding "Limit Breaks" in the traditional sense, like in XIV, but to XI? I know we have Weaponskills and our 1hr abilities which could be construed as a type of limit break, but did you ever think or want to implement a Limit-Break type system in XI?