How Energy Drain and Aetherflow healing should work.

[Nethereal]

I stopped here, because I want to break something down for you. At least from how I see things.

"Punished" boils down to having to use GCDs on non-offensive skills. SCH being the primary barrier healer of the group suffers the most from this as both Galvanize and Catalyze status effects are tied to GCDs.

While this is true I consider this to simply be a part of every class being "punished" for using anything that isn't a dps skill when not during down it's not something specific to any one class or healer. What I'm specifically talking about is that every use of Aetherflow on anything that isn't ED is a 150 potency dps loss that cannot be recovered. Using Lilies when you would have to GCD heal is a DPS GAIN of 225 if you reach misery. If you're weaving properly you'll have 200 potency from ruin 2 but you still lost 150 potency from not using ED.

Now you might think these situations are exactly the same, they're not simply because properly using ED is always a DPS GAIN where as Lilies are in terms of being a dps skill is a DPS Loss.
You can completely ignore Lilies and not lose any dps whatsoever, the same is not true for Aetherflow healing and ED.
The only time Lilies are a complete DPS GAIN is when used during complete down time, however if you would have had to GCD on anything besides Glare or Dia they're a DPS GAIN because you would have lost the 225 potency provided by the Lily. Which would have been completely lost just like ED potency if you were to use it on something else. Though even then they're still different in that Aetherflow and ED you want to have on CD as fast as possible so you can fit as many EDs into the fight as possible where as for Lilies you only want to be able to fit as many Miseries in the fight as to how many Lilies you used. E.G. in a vacuum for DPS you would never Lily (unless there was a point in time where the target becomes untargetable), the opposite is true for Aetherflow and ED.

Now lets compare the situations as a SCH if I were to GCD heal I would lose 280 potency from not using broil and 117 potency from ED clipping the broil, a total of 397 potency. WHM gained 225 potency from GCD healing and SCH lost 280 without the broil, 397 with an ED. Lets say I ruin 2 instead of broil and then weave a oGCD heal instead of a GCD heal. That's still a 80 potency loss just from not using broil and a 197 potency loss if you add the ED. So unless I'm using aetherflow on anything except ED I'm being punished for oGCD healing and that's with using ruin 2 and not clipping.

To clarify using a Lily over Glare is a 75 potency loss, using anything besides ED during ruin 2 is a 230 potency loss. 150 for not using ED and 80 for using ruin 2. If you were to GCD it would be a 280 without ED and 397 with ED.
Also because Lilies are a GCD they're a good way to not clip your oGCDs. They are fundamentally different in that one is a gain and the other is mitigation of sorts.

You are basically asking for even more DPS uptime on SCH. This basically tacks on 300pot damage to the enemy each time the SCH uses a barrier. You need to understand that this makes SCH ridiculously OP, or they would have to make pot adjustments on their other skills to compensate; OR they disseminate those high potency increases for SCH among all the other jobs making them wonder why some of their skills had a bit of potency shaved off of them.

Actually what this does is exactly the same as Lilies. Where as Lilies give back dps for GCDs this new method would simply not punish you for healing, though effectively it does give back dps the same way lilies do.

Say if you were to use a Lily instead of GCD heal you would gain 225 potency. If you were to use an Aetherflow ability not ED you would lose 150. This gives back the 150 potency lost.
You could nerf the damage ED(probably down to 100) does since that damage is no longer completely lost but honestly even if you didn't nerf the damage it wouldn't make SCH OP at all. While it might pull away from AST more in personal dps it still wouldn't beat WHM just come closer to it. And if you're wondering if that would put AST in an awkward position, it wouldn't they have the highest rDPS.

you're basically making them a watered down SMN with the ability to ST/AoE Earthern Ward on demand. You probably can see where I am going to go with this.

Not really, no. They're the same coin each preoccupying a different side. The fact they're similar does not mean one is the other or vice versa. They're specializations of the
same class, similarities should not be something uncommon.

Proceeding onward, Savage/Ultimate peeps would have to crunch hard numbers for you comparing SS to CO. For me, the fact that I can place SS wherever I want while on the move completely trumps any potency advantages CO has over SS.
There are also intangible factors at play. As an example, most players see a beneficial bubble and think, "standing in this = good"; in contrast, not all players are aware of the residual effects of CO, and if you truly want to optimize CO, all players have to be in its radius when you fire it off.

A valid point. They're two sides to the same coin, one is stationary and has range versatility except you're punished for using it. The other close range with player mobility and completely free. As for the radius it's not much different from using a cure 3. Nor do people need to understand what it does as long as they get hit by it.

Not everything is as it appears on paper. If you spend a good portion of time playing both AST and SCH, these things will make themselves known to you, and you can truly decide which one your playstyle favors.
And that is really what it comes down to. Things like SS vs CO isn't going to make or break or party comp, and are supposed to compliment each other during an encounter.

I play all 3 healers and having cleared the tier on AST I much prefer the free heals compared to punished heals and the reliably stronger shields versus the sometimes stronger shields tied to a 90 sec cd versus a 60 second one. That and like you said with SS, being able to shield while on the move at all times(Nocturnal Aspected Benefic) and having more potency than SCH (without a crit) is nice.

SCH shields are THE PERFECT example of how healer GCDs should be used. They feel really powerful and beneficial, so you don't really give a thought about the loss to DPS.

Free healing is actually a problem, and a big one at that. It, along with the lack of DPS skills are the two biggest contributors to healer boredom. SCH isn't getting Ruin IV; see above comment about the watered down SMN.

The fact Nocturnal Aspect Helios is stronger than Succor irks me quite a bit. Shields in general feel powerful and beneficial especially now that it's showed how much shielding is actually given.