Ya know, I think the MAJOR problem with developers and their games and them claiming to be players themselves, is that they are the developers. They know everything involved. They know the math. They know how stuff works. So when they sit down to play, if they do, they are falling back on the math. They know this, they know that, and they play based off of that. Insert the outsider i.e. you and me who don't know squat or even does know squat but not the finer details of what's going on underneath the hood and I guarantee the play styles are very VERY different, and that is why the developers have such a seemingly huge disconnect from the rest of us when it comes to FFXI.

To them this or that is fine, but to the rest of us who play the game from our unique perspective and style, not so much. They basically follow "the book". We do not. It's like a movie star watching their own movies. Usually they don't have any interest in it because they were there, they made it, they know what happens. There's no suspense or interest to watch. The developers may play FFXI, but they certainly will never be as we are with the game. So when we tell them that this or that needs to be done or that we want this or that because of blank, it's like speaking an alien language to them because as far as they are concerned with going by the book, everything is fine. And they should know better but apparently not. Apparently we have no one on FFXI from the original team so nobody knows what's going on. They don't know why we players made ninja's a tank with shadows, or why we gear PLD with damage in mind. They just see the book, and the code in the book. This is why they are trying to shoehorn THF back into an enmity control job, or PLD back into a turtle role, or ninja back into a DPS role(which helps them tank better actually but you know what I mean)

I guess one can say that well that's their book and how the game should be played because they want you to play that way soooooo... and they'd be right, I suppose. I'm just spelling out why there is a disconnect between dev and player. They understand the game like a machine would with numbers, or understand it on paper. We understand the game in practice.