elemental staves do need to grow up to join the game, no question. They sort-of had this with the kirin's pole, at least as to the casting part (but not the extra goody on each individual element's staff), but that staff was not an all jobs staff (and wasn't my bard pissed about that!). So yes, either something like you propose (obviously we couldn't have all the extra goodies from all 8 staves on 1), or else new versions to accomodate the 48 levels (once we hit 99 cap) added since these must-haves for every caster in the game were invented!