To be honest I think its a two way thing. There are some tanks out there that behave like idiots because they know that if they leave the worst they get is a 30min CD while the rest of the party is screwed.
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The game lacks tanks because..
1) They're very boring to play, especially Paladins. Yes, I know, DDs use the same rotation over and over too, but there are more skills to use and generally you need to be much more active.
2) Their faults are very visible and they get the most flak because of it. It's dangerous for a healer or DD to die too, but tank's death has the most impact upon the party.
3) People expect you to be informed in all fights that matter and tanks are the 'leading man' in those. DD and healers can get by with playing reactively whereas tanks has to play proactively. This puts extra pressure on tanks.
.. and these discourages people from playing them.
I agree that there are tanks who think they can do anything because of this. However most of the time as a tank you'll get hate and abuse flung towards you for anything you do even remotely wrong. Even if you're not a complete douche as a tank, there's still a fair chance that you'll get some hate.
I love it when DD's throw out a crap ton of hate at the start of a battle and I can't get full hate and im suppose to magically keep it from turning around..In my FFXI days DD's got yelled at for doing such dumb crap. But hey, Who am I to judge...
I love tanking. Never understood what people hated about it so much.
I wish there were more ways to control mobs.
Holmgang, for example, could have been made a 25-meter range skill. It will open up a wide range of possibilities for pulling. Yes I'm thinking about the Death Grip of WoW. :3 Warriors could have a lot more stun-based abilities, like Steel Cyclone could have a short stun, etc.
Paladins could get a straight column based knockback charge (Shield Charge), but instead of a simple knock back, it will knock back everything on its path varying distances such that everything that got knocked back would end up where the Paladin ends up. Or maybe a spell reflect or something.
Although we can also argue that the game is still in its infancy (in terms of new Job design), and we're only looking at the very basic bare bones of each class. I'm optimistic about this, perhaps in 3.0 or 4.0 there could be more new skills for each Job.
It's also arguable that they deliberately made tanking like this so newbies aren't overwhelmed by the "rotations" so they can pay more attention to positioning and enmity. Who knows.
I run as tank for charity reasons! Heck times when the tank drops I will offer to swap to tank so we can finish. Most of the time I get the same group. But I know what I do is not the norm.
Tanks and healers have a job to do.
DD play the game.