The unrewarding state of physical ranged

[ssunny2008]

Optimization is impactful and deep gameplay design.

To optimize a strategy for a fight is impactful yes. But the stuff a player can optimize with his class isn´t really much and not even forced by the game itself. There are only 2 situations where it actually matters. Log farm or maybe world first since you can´t rely on gear that much. Here we´re at BLM again, where you actually see a big gap of a standard and optimized (lucky) fight. But with all the other classes, the impact in DPS isn´t that big and it´s not that hard to adjust.
Imagine we would´ve some skilltrees to prepare for differen bosses aka burst for dps checks, better DoTs for downtimes or multiple adds/bosses.
I do get your point, but i can´t see it as unique or depth gameplay design, when nearly all subclasses play similar to each other and the whole class design is strict to make balancing easier / to hold the classes easy to cater every kind of player. It´s still MNK, BLM and RDM for me, who has atleast some uniqueness in their kit. It doesn´t matter how easy you can get used to it if train stuff at a dummy. Is just the base design which is different.

This feels a whole lot better than having their own mobility cut off because hrr drr ranged requirements

I get you, but isn´t that the real issue imo? The players obviously want their mobility to stay, otherwise you would still have casting times or whatever. You want that the raid is designed around that, but how? If that´s a thing, the group is forced to have that one physical range who knows what he´s doing. Not that i would be against it. I would welcome new bosses without the strict SE pattern, multiple bosses at once where a DPS has to kite one as long as the others focus on the rest, etc... but that´s obviously not possible. The casualization is real and SE is either uninspired and lazy or just follows the golden rule "don´t touch a running system". I would call it´s the 2nd part, maybe even both since every addon is going to be the same.
It´s not possible to get a real change as long as the players don´t want to give up their mobility and SE moves on with their boss and class design, especially when everything have to follow SE plans and the only thing which is up to the player, "how to spread or where to stack at any mechanics." More freedom for the player combined with some unique class requirements would make a difference. Put new boss designs on top of that and the gameplay would probably be much better and more than that "1 kill enjoyment". (e.g. Castrum before the lootpatch)