Melee classes are sad in CC

[Gserpent]

DRG is generally seen as the weakest melee. No CC and its DPS phase *increases* damage you take - and good players aren't all going to stack up so that you can debuff all of them with your roar. Not to mention, the LB has a lengthy charge and is generally quite easy to counter by guarding or just... moving away from it. It *can* work, but against high skill players the deck is stacked against you. You would basically need to build a team around the DRG, building to enable their LB to land like it needs to, to protect the DRG when they're in Life, etc. They have great DPS and their LB is incredibly strong if you can guarantee the dunk, but they're fragile and offer no CC.

SAM is similarly not a popular pick. High skill players tend to not attack into Chiten if you have or are about to have LB, and while they don't have any major things they lack, they also don't really excel at anything. They're basically Mario. Not bad, not good, basically just the baseline. But you don't see too many people playing Mario over more specialized characters, do you? Great class for stomping newbies on your way to into Crystal, though.

At high skill, MNK, NIN, and RPR are the most common picks. MNK is tanky and has the highest sustained DPS of any melee and the ability to 100-0 casters and healers is incredibly valuable. NIN is... well, NIN. Top tier poke, great at harassing people trying to potion, and the best sweeper in the game with a toolkit that can do just about anything. RPR is tankier than most actual tanks, decent sustained DPS, and one of the best LBs in the game on the shortest charge timer. But RPR does require you personally understand how to play the class, and it does tend to perform better with teammates that understand how to play the game properly. Tenebrae Lemurum is probably the best setup ability in the game, and with such a short charge timer, it's also really good at peeling in a pinch. And because of the forced (slow) movement and guard break, it has obvious synergy with environmental effects as well.

[Bureda]

DRG is generally seen as the weakest melee.

SAM is similarly not a popular pick.

At high skill, MNK, NIN, and RPR are the most common picks.

You're spewing a lot of garbage but very confidently.

MNK is the best melee job we have so far. It should win most 1vs1 matches outside of Paladin and fully stacked Reaper.
MNK doesn't just have high sustain, they have one of the highest bursts. Having 90% of your HP taken isn't sustain.

NIN have absolutely no melee presence even if they are 'melee'.
You also mentioned NIN being a hyped up Paladin. Paladins can deal high damage whilst essentially casting cure 2 on themselves every 1.44 seconds. When it comes to 1vs1 literally no job can touch a Paladin. If a NIN opts to go defensive and use both defensive mudras they are essentially non-existent.

DRG still have one of the highest range damage capabilities, even beating NIN and outside of MNK they are second best at dealing with current META and future META which is basically going to be BLM, SMN and MCH. Your sustain revolves around you being gung-ho. Which is the most effective method of dealing with ranged.

RPR is still hit and miss, in a controlled dueling environment they can even beat a PLD if the stars truly align. The problem with the job right now is waiting for all those stars to align is just a big gamble and the pay-off isn't worth the rush, when you could really be doing that with a MNK at a much more consistent pace.

SAM is in a very good spot, they can make a huge difference. Don't need to be flavour of the month. They do everything above average. Obviously, they need more love with the whole casting issue. BLM have less cast than a SAM. Now that's a slap to the face. Smile.

You're also ignoring the fact that ALL melees can be kited and cc'd twelve ways to Sunday. The meta is being shifted by Square towards Physical Ranged and Casters and if any pvper worth their salty sweat, knows ranged meta is terrible.

The only thing Melee have going for them is we have LBs that can clear objectives slightly better than what ranged can do, but, if they keep buffing SMN and MCH melee will just be relegated.