Encounter Design needs to be overhauled at a fundamental level

[Boa-Noah]

What they need to do is remove all dps spells from healers entirely and make the damage come from casting heals or off globals.

That's a very bad idea, back when the game first came out Healers had basically no DPS and were very hard to level up or play at all without being in group content, they had to change things to give healers DPS and even then had to further incentive people to play a Healer class with mounts and achievements. Same for Tanks though less so, they still had to implement draws so more people would play Tanks including those nifty mounts again.

Personally I don't want to go back to those days.

[Jandor]

That's a very bad idea, back when the game first came out Healers had basically no DPS and were very hard to level up or play at all without being in group content, they had to change things to give healers DPS and even then had to further incentive people to play a Healer class with mounts and achievements. Same for Tanks though less so, they still had to implement draws so more people would play Tanks including those nifty mounts again.

Personally I don't want to go back to those days.

The healer level 30 mount was because the game was new and Conjurer is the only healing class. People can spec into Scholar at level 30, but that's no good when nearly everyone is a fresh level 1 and the first duty is level 15.

Also, I'm pretty sure healers had more damage skills back in 2.0 compared to today. What they did have significantly less of though, is instant heals and huge amounts of healing oGCDs.
There was also cleric stance to complicate things, if you wanted to DPS you had to be fairly confident no healing would be required for the next 10+ seconds (can't remember exact cleric stance CD, long enough to make you sweat if you buggered up the timing though.)

[Boa-Noah]

The healer level 30 mount was because the game was new and Conjurer is the only healing class. People can spec into Scholar at level 30, but that's no good when nearly everyone is a fresh level 1 and the first duty is level 15.

Also, I'm pretty sure healers had more damage skills back in 2.0 compared to today.

Well then my memory is wrong, I remember more than a few times that I'd come on the forums or see in-game chat from friends about how terrible being a healer was, I recall it being an absolute slog to get leveled up and a lot of people just straight up didn't want to level a healer because of it. Now I'm just wondering why the hell I remember that if Healers actually had DPS, it's probably because my friends were idiots now that I think about it, they did all jump servers and leave my ass behind so it's not that unlikely they weren't the brightest bulbs in the bunch.

[Shurrikhan]

Well then my memory is wrong, I remember more than a few times that I'd come on the forums or see in-game chat from friends about how terrible being a healer was, I recall it being an absolute slog to get leveled up and a lot of people just straight up didn't want to level a healer because of it. Now I'm just wondering why the hell I remember that if Healers actually had DPS, it's probably because my friends were idiots now that I think about it, they did all jump servers and leave my ass behind so it's not that unlikely they weren't the brightest bulbs in the bunch.

Even in ARR, CNJ->WHM had Stone*, Stone II, Aero I, Aero II, Fluid Aura, Cleric Stance, and later Holy as damage-related buttons. ACN/SCH had Ruin, Ruin II, Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Bane, Energy Drain, and Cleric Stance.

WHM now has Glare, Dia, Holy, Assize, and Afflatus Misery. SCH has Broil III, Biolysis, Art of War, and Energy Drain. In both cases, the level 50 kit was at least slightly larger. The level 60 kits were considerably larger.

Healers' relative damage, i.e. the percentage of a DPS's dps in a dummy fight, is relatively unchanged from back then.