Adjustments to it are already underway (hopefully) so I'm not that worried about curing. Healing skill having little effect and tier 4 and below soft capping quickly is what should be addressed.

Elemental Barpsells cast quickly... the status ones I have a slight issue with but it's not as if you're trying to swap between them mid fight often.

It's probably too much to hope SE would buff phalanx II, or at least make it so you don't need 5 merits for the same potency as Phalanx 1.