You can look WM and BRD from this perspective.

[Belhi]

You can hardly be given more songs...BRD was (and probably still is) borderline op to the point all statics want at least one. You have party wide TP regen, party wide MP regen and a party wide straight magic damage boost, that's absolutely ridiculous... tell me exactly, what kind of song were you expecting that wasn't going to turn BRD into even something more mandatory than it probably already is?
Also, 1.5 cast can hardly be called a "cast stance". Most DPS spells have 2.5 seconds of cast, only heals have 1.5s, and really....they look almost instant. The difference between 2.5 and 1.5 is brutal...so comparing yourselves with a poor BLM (which by the way, are in a far worse spot than BRDs, imo SMN outshines them in pretty much everything atm) is not very accurate.

By this argument, the very concept of a support style class is flawed and BRDs should just be pure dps. BRDs have inferior DPS because they are a support class. That's the price they pay. Yoshi has outright stated that before. To say BRDs class focus has to be limited to keep them from being mandatory is pretty unfair to BRDs. Its effectively saying 'your a broken design'.

I honestly don't mind WM but the BRD abilities gained this expac feel pretty uninspired. Most of them feel rather fluff when acturate damage scaling between classes is taken into account.

Due to the changes to how Haste-type buffs work with the expansion, they could give about 5% at best. Plus, Selene already fills in that role, and Scholars are already pretty sought for. Party mitigation can already be filled in by some roles. Dragon Kick, Sacred Soil, and Virus are notable examples. Even though they have quite low percentages, they have very strong effects. Adding more is just asking for trouble. :n

Your basically saying BRDs, a stated support specialist, cant get more support skills cause many other classes, who aren't stated as support and don't get penalised because of it, already offer that support.

You can see how screwed up that is for BRDs right?

People make a big deal of BRDs MP and TP regeneration skills but Ive rarely seen them needed outside of raiding and in most raiding its only needed to compensate for mistakes. I raid as a WHM and I've almost never needed it. Usually we avoid it to keep the BRD from getting hit with the damage reduction using the song causes.