Restore? WHM already has an identity. It's got the honor of being the most nerfed class in the game. Which is especially silly when WAR and SCH are so overpowered that they're still raid mandatory, but WHM is the one that needed proactive 3.0 nerfs just in case they also became mandatory.

And no, Scholars aren't mandatory because they're "the only off healer". Their emergency healing toolkit is higher potency than WHM's or AST's, on shorter cooldowns, and more flexible. SCH has a version of both of WHM's regen abilities, and both are arguably on-par or stronger. Lily is a permanently divine-sealed (with its own built-in AOE divine seal that stacks with that base potency and can be further Divine Sealed by Rouse) 0 mana always-on version of regen that can split its ticks, doesn't need to be recast, and has a built-in AFK mode if you want to use it. Roused, Illuminated Whispering Dawn is more potent than Medica 2 (Hilariously enough, it is quite similar to pre-nerf Medica 2, which got a slap with the nerf bat because it was too powerful. On a white mage maybe). Lustrate is a more flexible, target-split capable emergency heal on the same "cooldown" as Tetra. Aetherflow and Indomitability, while not dealing damage in cleric stance, restore way more mana and heal more than Assize does, on a shorter timer, with the added bonus of not being an emergency heal that you're forced to put on cooldown if you want to use your mana regeneration. Emergency Tactics straight up gives SCH medica on a relatively short cooldown. Without even touching their shielding or their mitigation abilities, Scholar has a very powerful straight healing toolkit. WHM's main advantage is that they can spam some of those abilities, often in situations where casting it once or twice is sufficient. I don't get this community impression that WHM is "the pure raw healer", because that's only true by a very narrow margin.

Yes, using Aetherflow stacks for these is an opportunity cost. You could use them on Energy drain. That's ignoring the fact that Aetherflow already restores about as much MP as WHM's entire combined MP restoration kit on a shorter cooldown, so it's an opportunity to get even more mana back.

SCH has so many advantages it's insane. AST was overbuffed because they needed to keep up with the steamrolling monster that is SCH. WHM either needs an overhaul that takes them beyond the tired song and dance of "but you have Cure 3!" or Scholar needs a severe beating with the nerf bat. Yoshi stated he wasn't going to do the latter (WHY!?!?, since WHM has ALWAYS been fair game for it. But that's its own rant) I'm going to wait until 4.0 to see if we get the former. I like WHM for its flavor, but good heavens does it need some love.

Tl;dr Scholar is the beast that is the source of this lack of identity.