The thing is that Geomancer, while they're limited in number of buffs, have incredible potency with their buffs to make up for it. Since you haven't hit 99 and don't have the highest tiers of skill or a +5 Geomancy bell (not a skill bell, a direct +5 bonus to Geomancy in general), you wouldn't have seen the level of potency that exists later on. Even with only a Dunna, Indi-Fury gives +45% Attack, Indi-Barrier is +59% Defense, etc. With our DDs having more attack these days, let's just say around 1000 average (and this is pre-buffs), that's +450 attack compared to a +4 Songs Bard's double minuet, which only gives +152. Right there you're making up for two songs and then some. Indi-Haste is roughly a Haste 2, etc.

In terms of sheer potency, Geomancer is pretty amazing, and that's not even with Idris, which just makes it even more so. SE's design for the job is that while we get less buffs, meaning we can't spread a slew of them across different party members like BRD or COR can, we can make our impact felt. Even if we're not in the main party, we could do Frailty for a large DEF- and haste for your stunners, or if you don't have stunners (like DM2) you can stack Frailty/Torpor as non-removable debuffs by being in close range.

While it does make BRD still the most in-demand buffer due to the ability to spread specific buffs to specific people, GEO still has a place in many setups because of the amount of potency it has available to it. You just have to figure out what buffs are needed in what situations, and roll with it.