If Samurai had retained more of it's previous aspects while improving the ones it already has it would be right up there with Blackmage and wouldn't be getting overshadowed by Dragoonand Monk. Here's the changes I would make and feel free tell me what you think.

1. Make Tsubame Gaeshi a charge ability with 2 stacks at 60 seconds that still copys the previous Iaijutsu but allows the Iaijutsu to be stored until the next Iaijutsu is used so that even if I decide to continue on with my next part of my combo I can use that Tsubame Gaeshi Midare/Tenka later without delaying it causing GCD drift. (Example Midare>Hakaze>Jinpu>Midare/Tenka Kaeshi>Gekko) this would eliminate the gcd drift that Tsubame incurs when a Midare/Tenka is not used right away and would give Samurai extra damage during raid buffs ,in their opener ,and after long downtime.

2. Give back Hagakure. While this skill is controversial its blatantly obvious that the development team and a large portion of the Samurai community believe there needs to be a way to reset Sens throughout a fight and anything mathematically less potent then Midare just won't be used due to the Sen trade off being too high. Adding it back at orginal Kenki generation would add much needed flexibility when it comes to the Skillspeed builds Samurai can choose from rather then the current builds that only want to be at 2.13 or 2.06 GCD. With the aforementioned change to Midare Kaeshi Hagakure wouldn't conflict with Tsubame Gaeshi or with the new style that Samurai is currently using in fact it would only make it better as more Kenki generation overall would make Shintens far more abundant while the double charge on Tsubame would make the job feel more bursty and coinside with the development teams view on Samurai using more Midare overall.

3.Shoha should become a trait that upon successfully using Third Eye to mitigate damage Seigan and Shinten become Shoha Enhanced for 10 seconds and each gain 150 extra potency. This would actively encourage players to use Third Eye to mitigate damage. The player base may see the idea of taking damage to gain a dps increase as a bad thing however as a Damage Dealer we don't have the liberty to be hit by things that can 1 shot us also the development team has put in all sorts of sneaky ways of keeping us out of AOEs they don't want us to stand in whether that be in the form of damage down, vulnerability up, or just plain death.

I think these changes would make for a great middle ground compromise between players that like to use midare more often and those that like to use Hagakure shinten spam while rewarding players for actively supporting their team by mitigating damage.