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You're right that you can't rely on it for skilling up everything to cap at any given level, but having leveled a few jobs to 75 with pages in for example bostanieux, I'd say that it is not unreasonable for your skill at 75 to be around the level it should be at 60-65.
Then again, my last job was samurai, and I was using a soboro in those parties, and the parties were usually just 5-8 people, not full alliances. Even if you don't attack VT+ mobs, once your skill starts lagging behind by a 30-50ish points, you'll see a lot of skillups roll in from fighting EP and DCs, so it usually won't lag behind much more than that.
Still though, a one handed weapon shouldn't be too different from that, considering they swing a lot faster than other two handed weapons. For magic skillups, i'm not going to comment. Those are probably a lot worse.
Solo 1-10 in a nub zone, takes like an hour, do 10-30 in Bostaunieux Oubliette, takes 2-3 hours depending on the amount of scrubs in my way, then 30-99 in Abyssea over 2-3 days is how I lvl my jobs.
By level 30, you should have roughly 100 skill in <insert weapon here>. If you plan ahead and bring food / gear for skilling up, you can begin participating at 70 ish and have said weapon skill close enough to cap to not be a major hindrance by the time you hit 99. I just say "hey guys, who wants to take over keying? I'm gonna whack stuff with my <weapon> now.". Atmas can speed this process up considerably. Any deficient skills you have by 99 will typically be capped by the time you finish getting af/af2/af3 / magian weapons for said job, so that by the time it is ready for prime time events, all skills are suitably leveled.
This will obviously be harder if you are leveling your first character, because you won't have atmas etc. However, in the case of the OP, he can stand there and spam cures / enfeebles / enhancing magic as much as he wants, regardless of the leveling method and skill up completely naked if he wants. White mage is also a good choice for getting into pickup groups so you can get your atmas etc.
EDIT: Of course there are some jobs with multiple lame / rarely unused skills, or access to multiple weapon types. These jobs will require separate skill up sessions regardless of the method used to level the job.