Why vertical progression is poorly implemented

[Zumi]

This part isn't necessarily 100% true. The only time I have seen the demand for "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was towards the end of the life cycle for Voidwatch and when people where shouting for farming groups in Seekers zones. This demand did not come in any other era of the game when I played (I stopped playing within the first few months of Seekers).

The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was a way to filter out the hundreds of Damage Dealers out there. The "Relic/Mythic/Empyrean only" was not applied to Support Jobs or Healers. It was hard enough to find a Bard or Corsair let alone one with a Relic, Mythic, or Empyrean. Only those career Bards had a relic horn and/or the empyrean harp. Half of the bards and healers in FFXI during end of the Voidwatch era were dual boxed by some Damage Dealer player since they couldn't find a bard or healer within their play time.

It got worse when Delve came out because people started requiring bards to have the empy harp that did 3-4 songs, to get through the zone fast to do all 5 nms and the boss. There was like maybe 4-5 bards per server that had the harp some people did get it for their mules. So they were always getting tells because if they had no empy bard they didn't even want to go cause it meant not being able to do the zone due to having less buffs.

[Xtrasweettea]

It got worse when Delve came out because people started requiring bards to have the empy harp that did 3-4 songs, to get through the zone fast to do all 5 nms and the boss. There was like maybe 4-5 bards per server that had the harp some people did get it for their mules. So they were always getting tells because if they had no empy bard they didn't even want to go cause it meant not being able to do the zone due to having less buffs.

On Laskshmi, the "BRD Empy Harp only" limitation lasted for a few days to my knowledge when people were attempting to run Delve beyond farming. We had a shortage of BRDs on the server compared to demand. I knew of two Empy Harp owners. PUG runs were still done, though.

The LS I was in came over the lack of Harp by Bard Swapping (which should been done anyway, regardless of Harp or not) when we did Delve. We also did COR swapping on top of that.