I was kinda getting this vibe from day one honestly, and felt much more apparent with the inspiration merits. I don't think going the evasion tank route is a bad idea either, but as you've said, the devs kinda hoped RUN would depend on support jobs to do it's main job, which is never a good idea. After messing around with RUN for a good long while, I have a couple thoughts of my own on the subject.
So after Inspiration was added, I found that Blink and Stoneskin were actually usable mid-battle. I also found they weren't very effective on anything high level. To me, these were meant to be RUN's Utsusemi for evading damage, but they're too weak. For Blink, it gives only two shadows, which are maybe 50% reliable at procing. On the other hand, Utsusemi: Ichi gives 3 shadows and is 100% reliable. And then there's Stoneskin which is still capped at 350 without any special cap breaking equipment. 350 damage isn't even worth a single auto attack from high level mobs at times.
So I think it's pretty obvious that Blink and Stoneskin could be brought up into modern times. Blink is a Lv19 spell (For WHM) that has not changed at all since the time you learn it since enhancing magic skill does nothing (Like most other enhancing spells). Blink should give more shadows, either by changing the spell itself to accomodate for higher enhancing magic (A buff for everyone), or through a trait or equipment for RUN (A buff only for RUN). I'd have Blink give 6 shadows. For enhancing magic I'd do (2 + (Enhancing Magic / 100)), so 6 at skill 400+. For a trait, I'd have RUN gain multiple tiers of it so that by Lv99 they'd have 6 shadows (Maybe two traits, one at Lv50, one at 95 or so? +2 shadows for each). Or, for equipment, just give +4 extra shadows, kinda how
NIN's Empyrean feet give extra shadows to Utsusemi. Since we haven't had RUN's Empyrean armor added yet, this might be a good thing to consider adding to it.
Why 6 shadows though? Because again, Blink isn't exactly 100% reliable like Utsusemi, of which a NIN main can get 5 from Utsusemi: Ni with Empy feet. For one extra shadow compared to a NIN tank, which doesn't proc 100%, seems to be a fair thing to me. Also, Blink and Utsusemi can't be up at the same time, so there shouldn't be any worry about RUN/NINs being overpowered from having more blink shadows.
And for Stoneskin... Well, it just needs to give more than 350, which is the amount it was balanced at for Lv75 cap. 700+ seems a bit outragous, perhaps, but maybe 500ish? Again, can have enhancing magic effect it properly by removing the cap, or adding a trait to RUN, or a piece of RUN equipment that adds a decent bonus that's more than +10 to +20 like current pieces.
Inquartata could be a bit more powerful. Either by boosting the parry rate even more, or perhaps having a "partial parry" check when a full parry doesn't occur. Full parry would be -100% damage as it currently is, but a partial parry could be 25-50% damage reduced. So 20% chance for a full parry, then 50% for a partial parry to occur, so overall you'd have a 70% chance of some kind of damage reduction occuring.
Or, let Battuta last longer so I can have it up more than 30% of the time while I'm tanking 100% of the time, heh.
I just want to make it clear to the devs I really don't want to see changes occur to other jobs so they make better SJs as a fix to RUN. Buffing SAM or NIN to fix RUN just seems like taking the long road, and just wrong overall. RUN should be able to do it's thing entirely on it's own (As any job), with SJs being there strictly for support. RUN should have the choice of a variety of SJs depending on the goal they hope to achieve and not locked into a specific setup for all eternity with /sam or /nin for any serious content.
Oh, on a small note... If you remove enmity entirely from runes, does this mean they'll be on 1 second timers or less (This would be awesome)? Since you halved the enmity along with the recast in the previous update and all...