All this talk--more like concern trolling to me--about game balance where RDM is concerned is a lot of junk, blowfin. You know it, and so do your lackeys at BlueGartr and the elitist wannabes at Alla.
I'm too lazy to troll that hard, sorry.

Also, I have lackeys at BG?

The thinking of you and your kind is the very reason Estoqueur's Armor has absolutely NOTHING pertinent to close combat. Why should it have such stats when the jackals of this playerbase scream bloody murder at the mere suggestion of Red Mages actually becoming more than capable of contributing on the front lines?
I think it really depends on the way you think of "contributing on the front lines". As far as EXP goes (and apart from it being just about moot in 2011) I don't think RDM is really as far behind as people would make it out to be. I'm assuming a RDM with Aeolian Edge and decent Atmas is a pretty handy thing to have in Abyssea? RDM was mentioned as being a good job to support the Fell Cleave warrior earlier too.

If you're talking about contributing with melee damage for tougher NM fights and the like. Well... 90% of the jobs in this game are generally back line jobs in that situation. I don't think it's realistic to expect to regularly melee in those situations. Being able to support the tanks is fine, but there's the problems of AOE damage (i.e. dead RDM) and feeding needless TP to the NM.

So I guess my point is i'm not seeing the direction of the "fencer mage" being useful in a whole lot of places for RDM. Where exactly does it fit into the game as it currently stands? Maybe it becomes more viable in events like Dynamis but even then, it's barely worth the effort when you are compared with dedicated DD's. Even with buffs and changes it's unreasonable to expect to keep up with them.