Each expansion I get hyped and also worried about more skills.

[ForteNightshade]

From how they've been going, you're going to lose something anyway. Might as well go with combo consolidation rather than remove things like Life Surge and Spineshatter Dive just to make room for new things. You could have kept Phlebotomize and Heavy Trust if they consolidated combos earlier.

Which I'd honestly prefer if given the choice. Why? On average, I'll press my combos anywhere from 15-20 times per fight; more if longer. I'll use Life Surge and Spineshatter Dive half as frequently if not even less. Therefore, combo consolidation worsens my gameplay as it'll reduce most of my activity to spamming 1222111112. Furthermore, Dragoon really doesn't need any abilities pruned. I already have four Dragon Sight macros because of the available hotbar space. So there is plenty of room for new abilities, especially if they only add one or two. On top of that, this also assumes they don't simply go the upgrade route. Jump became High Jump. There's no reason to believe they won't do something similar to Spineshatter.

As for Heavy Thrust and Phlebotomize. Neither's removal had anything to do with button bloat. They specifically said they removed Heavy Thrust (and Straight Shot) because far too many casual players weren't utilizing them, thus causing a larger gap between players. Basically, they dumbed it down again after already nerfing Heavy Thrust in Stormblood. Phlebotomize was dropped due to their dislike of DoTs as it causes issues in large scale raids as bosses can only display 30 effects of any kind.

[Shurrikhan]

Phlebotomize was dropped due to their dislike of DoTs as it causes issues in large scale raids as bosses can only display 30 effects of any kind.

Which is turn only because they can't be bothered to manage more than three-fourths of what a 2004 MMO could, let alone its fixes...

But, yes, let's just remove most DoTs rather than actually do anything about that beyond geriatric code.