Questions you don't think SE team will answer.

[Yurimi]

I've been hearing "Healers and tanks are gonna stop if you don't X!" since 2.0, dude(Though in 2.x it was mostly white mages bawwwing about holy getting nerfed). Turns out, we still have healers and tanks, and probably more than before.

Perhaps but how many of the people on AST are still playing healers right now because we were bored of WHM and SCH and went to that. I know that is why I switched and atm have grown a bit bored of it as well. I am atm looking for a new job to play for 4.0 so while I can only speak for myself there is at LEAST 1 less healer that will be in the pool to pull from as I will be moving to some sort of dps or another and adding to that pool instead (idk which dps yet since I am trying everything to see what suits my fancy but something).

If people need to be given incentive to keep playing their role then it simply means they aren't dedicated. You shouldn't need a shiny new class to keep you convinced to keep playing your role.

What baffles me is anyone who mains healer complaining. Did everyone memory-wipe themselves of how bad AST was for a long while? Do you really want a repeat of it?

I am fairly big on healing. I was a healer in 1.0 (which all we had then was whm) I was WHM in 2.0-2.2 and SCH 2.2-2.55. I changed to AST in 3.0 and had decent success raiding on it. Healing is what I have always done in games even so far as tending to lean on being a healer even in single player RPG's where I control a single character (Tales of series, .hack series, FFXII, FFXIII, etc) but at some point I get bored. I like to try new things and work on mastering a new ability set. That doesnt mean I am not dedicated but if I am playing a game to have fun and am bored of a certain job I am going to find entertainment elsewhere be it another job in this game or a healer in another game.