What's the general vibe of the current gap between skill floor and ceiling?

[Skiros]

I forget who mentioned it in an earlier thread, but it would appear the focus is more on encounter design than it is on class skills. Yes, there are few buttons to push but people who don't get out of the AoE's now will continue not to and optimization will occur on a fight by fight basis. Whether that actually ends up being the case is up for debate, but it does make a certain amount of sense.

That makes hardly any sense because they have not increased encounter difficulty in Shadowbringers. If anything they have largely decreased it, outside of E8S and TEA (which were cleared faster compared to encounters that IMO had easier mechanics, partially because of the lower job complexity).

It's the typical copium from people thinking that easier jobs means harder encounters. They have shown that to not be the case.

Furthermore, encounter difficulty does not make up for the lack of job complexity because a huge part of early week 1 progression is to learn how to optimize your job well enough to get an early clear. The easier the jobs, the faster you can optimize your job in the encounter, and therefore the easier the encounter as a whole.