4. Resource management. We went from having 3 kenki spenders down to 2, which Senei/Guren is a on 2 minute CD that lines up with Ikishoten so really you had 2 kenki spenders down to 1 now. Having a gauge with only one way to spend the resource is boring. Other classes have that issue. I'm sure some people like it and I'm fine with that, let them have some classes that have that option. But having to balance kenki usage to ensure I didn't dip below Kaiten's cost was part of the fun in resource management. It wasn't just a button for the sake of pressing a button like BLMs Enochian was. Because unlike Enochian where you're going to press it no matter what, floating kenki high so you have enough kenki to do what you need while having the risk of overcapping was a conscious choice with autonomous decision making. On top of that, since Senei only takes 25 kenki it was helpful to be able to weave kaiten and shinten together to eat 45 kenki before ikishoten came up so I could maximize kenki for raid buffs.

5. SAM still puts out good damage even if you don't play it optimally. Forget to Kaiten before midare? Not the end of the world. Never touch third eye? Not a gigantic loss. Overcap your kenki on accident? No big deal. You could play the class as casually as you wanted and still do decent damage. But I like high skill ceilings. You can make the skill floor as low as you want, but don't lower the skill ceiling. Optimizing is a big part of the fun for me, simple classes just leave me kind of bored. Resolving button bloat would do far more in helping more casual players pick up the class.

6. Just to add to this since it's related to kaiten being taken away: I don't like autocrits. I don't like them for WAR and I don't like it for SAM. On top of it being anti-synergetic with crit buffs it's just not a fun philosophy. When every hit is a crit, no hit is a crit. What's the fun of rolling a Nat 20 when there are no other numbers on the dice? If damage variance was the issue the easy answer was to reduce the potency of Ogi Namikiri/Midare and move it into the rest of the kit. If SE is planning on guaranteeing crits more and more then at the very least crit buffs need to move from improving crit chance to improving crit damage.

All in all, I felt like SAM was in an incredibly solid spot at this point and could've gone without ANY changes compared to some of the other classes. I don't really care if this class is the top dps class or the ideal dance partner, I stuck with SAM when RPR came out and MNK was the king of melee damage. I like the class, Kaiten is a big part of the class. So unless there's more changes coming that are going to resolve the issues I've described above I can't imagine that these changes will be fun ones.