For variants of animations, i would rather see Iaido stance, or just quick-draw stance for SAM.
Really, i know that in sheated-weapon-state SAM will have the sword drawn, but i still hope for some unsheated blade animations.

Now to the facts:
Yoshi didn't say, he wants SAM to be dps, he said, he would like to see SAM as dps. Probably out of curiosity.
...Thou I dare you, i double dare you... don't you dare mention SAM as dps... Otherwise Tank spot will be filled with some weird stuff like RDM or BST or weird things like that that gives me shivers and wake up late at night with scream.

If SAM was implemented as tank, it would probably be more towards WAR like system, since DRK was more like PLD in general mitigation working system.
Building up Gouge stacks on enemies to use on them high-potency attacks? Thou it would suck, since you loose stacks when mob dies. maybe as OT stance.

Thou i see SAM as stance dancing tank focused on single target punishing. Since WAR has some decent AoEs (however still cannot be compared to DRK of course), i have some hopes, for AoE lacking Single-Target Cheesing with a bit of support skills straight from FF tactics (which were called Iaido btw, but thats totally not what Iaido is! Terrible translation or just huge mistake! ***The More You Know...***)

Also, i wonder what kind of Core ability would be used. i just hope nothing like "Your HP cannot fall below 1"...

As for magic damage dealing, there is no really point in that. Since if i have noticed correctly, magic dmg are based on weapon base dmg, and that makes magic dmg with a potency of 150 absolutely same as physical dmg with a potency of 150, on same weapon, except that there is a mana cost. DRK do not deal more dmg with Unmend that Low Blows, and both are 150.

Until they fix elemental damage (I didn't notice difference on any character, any monster, anywhere, any element) i would rather to just make some attacks look fancy enough to call them magical + add mana cost to them. Like DRKs Unmend, Unleash, Abbysal Drain i.e.

Next. RDM tank. You made a great job with planning RDM as tank. Really nice. Discarded.

I, and probably 70% of community, do not want to trasform FFXIV into TERA, where half-naked Lolis wearing robes or rags tank busters with their fluffy butts, casting Limit breaks as their normal combo.
Red Mage is a mage. Those type of smart wizards, that use fancy magic, need a casting time and robes. (DRK is not an argument here, he has spells as typical enmity control skills, and they are not a part of any chain combo.)

Do you want a good tank class fitting gameplay and overall game mechanics,
or easier to play favourite class with faster DF queues?
Becuase thats how it looks like. Like you do not want to sweat over DPS rotation to pump your best or to sweat over DF queuing time...