Bards these days are extremely gimped on DPS side of our class but can be top of the DPS chart if either a) every other DPS class is playing badly or b) your very hardcore about playing bard for example perfect rotations, constant parser tweaks squeezing out every single drop of blood from your abilities/gear plus wearing better gear than others in the group. If your hoping for very good DPS, unless your extremely hardcore you won't top the charts much.
The fun aspect of bard is still the mobility but with machinist class incoming which will also be ranged DPS, if going to pick ranged physical DPS I would go for machinist, until then BLM and MNK tend to still top the DPS charts most often with classes already present. Bard getting a raid spot is only partially true, they are mostly used in training groups but quite often I seen them be switched out in favor of other better DPS classes once groups have the mechanics down. You need to become good friends of raid static members to avoid being kicked later on in favor of better DPS class I think since most groups I seen which keep a bard in after learning the mechanics is because they made friends with them and not because bard offered of a benefit at that stage regarding clearing content faster.
With ninja it is a fun class to begin with and has some fun moves but mudras can be very annoying, quite dependent on latency and lag issues. DPS wise they don't tend to top the charts that often either but again depends how hardcore you are with the class. Monks whined about them coming near their holy grail of DPS output so SE nerfed the ninjas.