If making mages suck was the only way they could think of to make content challenging, then they should have asked the playerbase for more ideas before going ahead.

Let's be honest here - if they had made cures cost this much when cross-classed - I wouldn't have a problem with that.

If they had, instead of making cures drain a whole mana pool (making it un-strategic for mages to do anything but heal most of the time) put a cool down on each cure spell that forced more strategic cures, without making it so they can't afford to use almost any other spell - that would be cool, AND achieve the same goal of reducing cure spam.

Cure: 20 second cool down
Cure II: 30 second cool down
Cure III: 40 second cool down
Curaga: 50 second cool down
Curaga II: 60 second cool down

There! In five minutes I came up with a system that makes healing more strategic without forcing mages to stand around waiting for mp all the time. Wow.

I am not saying it is the be all and end all, but really, the only thing the developers could think of to make dungeons hard was to make mages suck? That's pretty weak.