Black Mage Raise Ability

[PrismaticDaybreak]

...

There are 3 examples of SMN being heavily linked to White Magic and/or Raising, 2 of which are in IX which doesn't use a traditional job system and Yuna in X which again doesn't use a traditional job system. 3 is not many. All other variations of SMN without individual game gimmicks allowing Raise do not have Raise as a default. Summoning Phoenix doesn't count since it's not White Magic. You can't use lore for or against this argument either way as each game is its own self contained universe and previous entries should be considered little more than guideposts and general framework than anything concrete, and in this self contained universe, the devs have decided that the unique experience of each job is a design priority, having Red Mage be adept at both White and Black magic is part of that.

On the matter of people asking for RDMs over the other two casters I've seen this very little, going off of party finder for my data center anyway, and usually the ones that do are trap parties hoping a Red Mage is enough to carry them, pointless elitists who follow the meta because that's how X or Y world first group did it (these people usually think they're on the same level and can just pick it up and do the instance because they have meta composition), or both. Anecdotal evidence is a bad metric either way, the only one who will be able to see the entire picture is SE since they most likely have numbers for the entire population, notice they didn't touch Verraise at all yet despite having several opportunities to do so. Our limited perspectives are pointless here.