It's a bit shocking to see people unironically argue in favor of the complete removal of raid buffs.

The content creator catchphrase "The Two-Minute Meta is bad" came pre-digested and was force fed to the wider playerbase. Now we've reached a point where a lot of the people weighing in on this don't actually have any raiding context to critically appraise it with. The Two-Minute Meta isn't threatening freestyle gameplay, opportunities to get hard carried through 24p content, or the 'You don't pay my sub' Meta. This is not a 'raid buffs are too hard so we have to remove them' problem. If this is was your interpretation of the phrase, you're better off leaving this discussion to others, as it doesn't actually affect you.

The original issue raised around raid buffs this expansion was homogenization. Players have been syncing up raid buffs in raid content for the lifespan of this game. Openers have been designed around TA timings since at least Heavensward. Standardization always leads to a degree of homogenization. It then gets harder to differentiate between individual job playstyles when everyone bursts at the same intervals. It's also a simplification of the system, as you no longer need to have as much of an understanding of how to sync up with other jobs in your particular comp, or as much of an awareness of what other players are doing.

Removing raid buffs actually accentuates both of these problems, leading to greater homogenization and simplification of the current system.

There are benefits to using standardized raid buff timings. Because the system is a bit more obvious and independent of comp, you actually have greater player awareness and engagement with timing raid buffs and teamplay. It also means that some jobs are not off-meta picks simply because they have buff timings that don't sync well, or because there are large discrepancies in raid buff power. Why do you think TA reigned supreme? It was a one-minute raid buff which synced up with pretty much everything, and it was a potent buff a short time frame. That translates into a lot of free damage, if you know which GCDs matter.

This is also one place where fight design can cross-compensate for standardized raid buff timings. Because every group bursts at the same time, mechanic timings can be designed to specifically inconvenience this. I think the real question to be discussed is around the interval of buff timings, because that comes down to intensity. Shorter intervals (i.e. one minute) lead to more opportunities for intensive mechanic checks and less downtime. Longer intervals allow for jobs to involve some actual resource management, giving you an adequate build phase and making you think about where you actually want to place your mini-burst relative to the standardized big burst. But this isn't really an issue for jobs that are functionally timer based.

I think it's important that people step in and unambiguously request that the game not be simplified further by removing raid buffs.

One last point - I hope that we can all eventually move away from this idea that physical ranged DPS are somehow just there as 'support DPS'. That concept was eradicated with the job gauge systems of Stormblood, since you no longer had the opportunity to help your teammate generate additional resources. Treating physical ranged as a watered down 'support DPS' that provides 'utility' (read: 1% benchwarmer buff) just isn't good design.