Pre-nerf BST was not actually "the style of play that had existed since the job began" at all. The original BST had jugpets that died in a couple of hits from any strong mob, and their pet healing was on reward timer without mulsum spam. The original job was all about charm-chaining, the only times you used jugpets were if all charm mobs were down, or if you were in an easy bcnm. My first Maat win was on BST in 2005 and I paid a fortune for a single Panzer jug, the pet still died in short time lol. Jugpets were super weak back then, before stout servant.
So the original BST "style of play" was never about calling these new Siege Engine pets and just spamming mulsums. Reward was long-range because the master rarely meleed any seriously powerful mobs, most BST stood far away from those mobs, with a light/earth staff equipped, and SS/blink up lol. So it made sense for BST to have long range remote-mode pet commands.
But the job mechanics changed in Aby, no charm pets available, and BST was encouraged to be more melee. We understand that SE have tried to find the right balance since then, because the original BST job was turned upside down in 2010, and since that time we got ilvl pets, which again affected the job balance.
I can see why SE needed to rebalance BST again, it was never designed to be played the way it has been recently. But I also agree with many posters here, that it is ridiculous to have such a tiny reward range, that if you are on other side of the mob you can't cure your pet. That range is too short, clearly.