Has anyone quit healing?

[MintnHoney]

No, Semirhage's point seems to be that they like doing damage and want a more buttons damage kit. It has nothing to do with being an "idiot" or not.

Based on what? Because they don't like WHM being defaulted to automatically being the simple job that stays dumbed down because "there has to be one?"

AST also makes no sense for the simple gameplay, since the point of having a simple Job is for it to be...simple...and AST isn't.

Some parts can remain simple to make room for complicated pieces; a simple GCD kit, i.e., simplified general gameplay that an entry level healer would generally be putting around with, is perfect for AST to allow players at the entry level to heal while an emphasis on cards would allow growth without hurting the skill floor.

As I noted above, WHM has the most straightforward and direct healing kit. I contrasted Tetra and Essential Dignity to make this point, but I can pick out just about any other set of comparable abilities and show that the AST ones have more nuance and the WHM ones are straighforward "just the facts, ma'am" abilities to do the job at hand.

Indeed, and things can be improved and added so that there's kit interactivity, or a proper rotation, without taking away from the basic structure of the basic healer kit, so that, WHM, too, can be fun to play for various skill levels and not just the ones sucking on their thumbs.

Enjoying healing tends to mean enjoying healing...not enjoying dpsing. Indeed, many people that play healers (and to a lesser extent, tanks) in MMOs do so explicitly because they find DPS rotations unsatisfying or unenjoyable to perform.

And many of those people who play healer classes in MMOs also tend to get to enjoy gameplay where they aren't infantilized. Multi-tasking is usually the name of the game in healer MMO gameplay, which usually does include juggling DPS along with other management and tool use.
Unfortunately, FFXIV goes against that, with a non-traditional healing model that tries to inject the feeling of a JRPG into an MMORPG, and it just doesn't work 1:1 without other requirements being met.

But hey, since you don't like my suggestion, I guess it means you prefer the alternative? STICKING WITH WHAT WE HAVE RIGHT NOW WITH NO CHANGES?

Actually, I didn't say anything about your "suggestion" as a whole, but sure. I'll be in the "I don't like your suggestion" camp, but raise you a "there are people out there with better ideas than you've put forth, and, after your display, I'd wager that there are even ideas that are even better than that which you will likely never be able to fathom" to go along with it.

Because make no mistake, that IS the alternative. In making the perfect the enemy of the good, you sacrifice any shot at your perfect. I'm perfectly content with everything remaining as it is today, too. By your words, I would wager you are not. What I'm proposing is the compromise position.

Your uncompromising take on all things is not the only alternative, no matter how much you want to disregard other avenues. Given that you are not the developer, and given that this is a discussion forum with other participants, by default, there are many different alternatives, no matter how personally insulted you may be.