Why does SMN have Physick?

[tdb]

the reason ACN has it was to give a healing spell available for players that start in Limsa (given there is no dedicated healing class available in Limsa from the get-go until you unlock SCH).

This seems unlikely to be the reason, since Ul-dah has no dedicated healer class at all. PLD and RDM have some healing capability now, but neither did in the 2.x days. PLD got Clemency in 3.0 and RDM didn't even exist until 4.0. And of course now we have a total of six major cities, four of which serve as starting points for various classes, but there are only three healer classes. Gridania didn't have a tank either until GNB was introduced in 5.0.

[Enkidoh]

This seems unlikely to be the reason, since Ul-dah has no dedicated healer class at all. PLD and RDM have some healing capability now, but neither did in the 2.x days. PLD got Clemency in 3.0 and RDM didn't even exist until 4.0. And of course now we have a total of six major cities, four of which serve as starting points for various classes, but there are only three healer classes. Gridania didn't have a tank either until GNB was introduced in 5.0.

It is though, although Ul'dah indeed doesn't have a healer class either at the start, the expectation was that an Ul'dah player would actually head off on foot/chocobo to Gridania and unlock CNJ for a healer (or at least, under the old cross-class system, to get healing spells to cross-class). Where as this was not possible with Limsa, as the ferry to Vesper Bay was actually not available until you progressed in the main story past level 15 and gained your airship pass, which unlocked the ferry at the same time, there was thus more of a need to have a 'healer' in Limsa, or a class with healing spells that could be cross-classed on another class (this is the same reason there is no 'tank' classes in Gridania either, a Gridanian player was meant to head to Ul'dah and unlock GLA).

Of course they could have also just made the ferry available right at the start thus allowing freedom at unlocking all classes, but SE seemed to be pretty set on granting new content to players at the start of the game gradually.