I don't think the class is being punished for having a res half as badly as people think it is. The problem is the class is being punished by having a poorly designed rotation and having Devotion, and people just happen to blame res utility for some bizarre reason despite it likely being a non-factor when determining class design since players are expected to survive throughout a fight and casters can just help healers, which is mostly a prog system than anything else.

SMNs entire issue ties back to my first point though, the rotation is just bad. Pure and simple.