It sounds to me like you're basing your complaints about balance based on dueling or something because PvP feels way better today than it ever did in 2.1. Healers do not need cleric stance and it made SCH insanely OP similar to the degree it is in PvE content. The casting changes are very much welcomed as it helped even the field for casters that didn't have as many insta casts (BLM/WHM in comparison to SMN/SCH) and it meant that physical DPS couldn't just steamroll over casters with them being able to do little to nothing about it. Even now though, you can still interrupt a cast with just about any attack that crits and 2 physical dps can pretty easily lock down a caster giving physical dps an advantage.

WAR (and tanks in general) is still the 1v1 king but it's really not that big a deal in anything outside of dueling. WAR could probably use a slight nerf to their self heals but that's about it.