I like button consolidation if it's made intelligently and allows for more variety and interesting things to be added as a result. But recently taking a look at VPR for example, do you know how many people actually remember the names of each of the abilities of the main combo? And what they are? The only thing they remember is the color of the last step for the positional, since for the rest, they're interchangeable and the glowy autopilot will tell you which buff to refresh next. That's funny on its own because while it's more interesting than a bland basic 1-2-3 combo, what it actually gained is a little complexity in the succession of the button one presses, but not the choices that you make about which to press or why. If anything, it is completely about memory and executing a script as close as possible to a T.