I do feel that healer design overall is lacking but only because they more or less feel like healbots. I don't mind being DPS-oriented because its the only thing on healer that feels conductive past progging. There is no support outside of cards and chain stratagem.

Unfortunately, looking at the healer queues now and how fast people swapped off Sage, its only evident that people do not like playing healer. It's a myriad of issues ranging from gameplay issues, lack of meaningful impact, and overall rewarding gameplay but mostly importantly, player mentality.

It's no secret that healer and tank out of any online game with a class trinity/system would have these roles high in demand and not just in MMOs. Overwatch tank and support queues are near-instant. Genshin Impact's co-op never has a healer on deck unless you play Bennett ofc. Killing Floor 2 only has one healing perk which usually is run by a single player.

People have come to this mindset that healers in general are not fun and comes with too much responsibility which is not true. In reality, DPS have the hardest job but are less noticeable when they fail. If DPS can't even beat healers and tanks in killing the boss faster, then what are they there for? This is why tanks and healers have been pushing for more rewarding DPS play styles because DPS is the only thing they can do meaningfully. All these games have one thing in common, beat the timer or kill it faster than it can kill you. We don't need extra healing if we can kill it faster, making the devs' attempt at forcing more healing to go in vain. People will want the healers with the most damage/raid support.

This is why you see AST rise to the top every expansion, they have buffs. SCH will likely be up there too. WHM is WHM and will be a safe pick regardless. Sage's entire gig seems to be damage but idk, if they're the personal dps healer version of SCH, then I'm not sure what they're going to do.