The Red Mage could be more fun, my incentives for it

Yeah...I don't agree with this method of thinking, for several reasons:

1) RDM has always been a mage archetype, and only secondarily a weapon-user. So in general it just doesn't fit RDM's identity.
2) RDM in XIV still only has like 4 melee moves (plus a melee-ish Cone AoE), everything else is solidly in a caster role. So functionally it doesn't fit RDM's job fantasy in XIV.
3) RDM in XIV's "unique" niche is defined by its "red magic" spells. While yes this includes the aforementioned melee attacks, this also includes Jolt, Scatter/Impact, Scorch, Resolution, Acceleration, and Magick Barrier. All of which solidly place it in "more" of a caster/healer role than a melee role, and are easily the more distinct part of RDM's kit identity versus the "enchanted slashy slash" that at minimum is also shared by DRK and SAM, if not also PLD, GNB, and perhaps other melee jobs.
4) We are lacking in options for casters as it is. It is clearly *hard* for the devs to come up with casters in XIV that each have a distinct identity when so much offensive magick in FF is elemental-based. RDM shines as a much-needed "blood magic" archetype alongside generic elementalists BLM and SMN. Take that away and casters don't have interesting job fantasies like SGE or AST, unless they want to play BLU.

Why do people post job feedback below max level? You literally don’t know what you’re talking about. May as well talk about how poorly written a movie is based on what you see in a trailer.

This version of Red Mage truly feels like it is one that is actually perfected.

I see no reason to flip Red Mage on its head seeing as the job is in an amazing position, minus enchanted reprise not getting adjusted for new mana costs. Red Mage fits me like a glove and is my raid job. Lower levels often feel like something's missing because the rotations are quite basic but it gets much better at the high levels.

Though it's interesting what I read from page 1 if I am understanding this correctly: "you can't get around making the melee available faster" is blatantly false. At level 60 and as of Endwalker that availability is no longer a problem. Manafication is the level 60 capstone skill and provides 50/50 mana right off the start, allowing for a smoother and real opener.

This thread is a good example of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.". Fix enchanted reprise cost though SE thanks.

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Originally Posted by localman

But just exactly my unconsumedness, makes me completely unbiased. And therefore I can evaluate the red mage also much more neutrally and I say, and feel immediately, that he could be better than he is from the game fun.

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At the risk of sounding blunt/rude, this is nonsense. This makes you the least qualified to talk about Red Mage. This has been my DPS job since its release TWO EXPANSIONS ago.

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Originally Posted by localman

I'm just more about making the class fun to play, not about builds and effectiveness in a small area somewhere at the very end.

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While it's worth noting that "fun" is a subjective judgement, I personally find EW Red Mage it be one of the most enjoyable jobs in the game. And given the parse statistics, quite a number of others enjoy the job as well (and that's despite the fact that, statistically, it's not exactly an "amazing" DPS job from an output perspective). It's highly flexible, dynamic, flashy, mobile, and packed to the gills with group utility.

It's also, as pointed out here by others, extremely difficult to take you serious in your evaluation of the job at only level 51. I personally enjoyed Red Mage more than Ninja when I picked it up at 50, but only just. I actually swapped to Dancer at 60 because I was getting bored with Red Mage. It wasn't until I caught my Red Mage back up and tandem leveled Red Mage alongside Dancer during Shadowbringers that I swapped to just adoring Red Mage, and Dancer ended up being the one I had to go back and finish leveling to 80! Once you get Manafication and the spell finishers at 70+ (especially with the new level 90 superlaser Resolution), it's an incredibly fun job. You go into your melee combo far more often (on average you're starting a melee combo every ~30s, with the combo itself then taking ~13s, so your "filler" time is only about ~half of your time spent), and the melee combo itself is longer, more impactful, and way flashier. All around, it's an exceptionally well-designed job as of Endwalker, with 6.0 cutting nearly all of the remaining clunky "fat" off the job.

To be honest, I still don't like playing my Red Mage in lower-synced content, though it's admittedly quite a bit better about syncing down than, say, Reaper or Black Mage.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

At the risk of sounding blunt/rude, this is nonsense. This makes you the least qualified to talk about Red Mage. This has been my DPS job since its release TWO EXPANSIONS ago.

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This. While having new perspectives on things is valuable, and putting "you must be this high" type signs on which opinions are acceptable risks creating an echo chamber, it's also remarkably presumptuous for someone to assert that a job they've spent maybe an hour or two playing, using only the base starting kit, is a job they are qualified to give not just useful and actionable feedback about at the overarching endgame design of that job, but feedback that is implied to be superior to those that have played the job through endgame and understand how the full kit fits together.

No offense at all intended, but as others have stated it really sort of sounds like you either don't understand the class or maybe the class as it exists just isn't what you want in Red Mage. That's perfectly understandable. Heck, until EW, Summoner wasn't at all what I wanted in Summoner. Not to dig that argument up as I know there are many who don't like new SMN and/or did love old SMN, but old SMN just wasn't for me. I can understand liking some elements of a class, or my idea of a class, and not having it jive with how the class actually works in the game.

One of my personal wants for a new job is a rune knight or spell blade. Essentially a caster that fights in melee range with elemental magic augmenting their attacks. But that's not RDM, and especially not FF14 RDM.