I used to engage mobs using light slash too, but after patch can't do that anymore since it was taken off your manual attacks. I agree with Phenidate about making 1st attack faster. Last night while doing dungeon it was a killer having to wait for my character to initiate the 1st hit, it has to be either using a <attack> command or speeding initial attack.

Now, about mages, it was posted that they are working on making spells being able without the need to switching to active stance, my thought (and i am just assuming) is for mages to use mp regen from being passive.

I would say we need to wait until next update to see what adjustments are made upon feedback, for the moment, this post is just stating our point of view as players.