So how would you buff bard? (Just like to hear peoples thoughts)

[Valence]

You've never tried to maximize BRD to be honest it's so much harder than SAM PCT VPR for example

From a rphys main that has mained BRD in raids for many tiers, joke's on you. I find SAM loopium incredibly unintuitive to me in comparison.

But all of this tends to show that this is very subjective. I just deal well with rng and priority/proc jobs, and a lot less with uptime jobs or APM which will look easier for most people than to me.

Because melees are dirt-easy to play, at least half of them (Viper, Reaper, Dragoon), so it really isn't difficult to pick a job at random and have it be harder?

I do not either understand where the idea that RPR is easy to play comes from. The burst/resource/gauge optimization doesn't seem exactly noob friendly to me, and drifting Gluttony is a big pet peeve of mine. Way more punishing than drifting EA.
Not gonna argue about VPR though, it's mostly brainless to me.

Gameplay-wise? There's a ton I'd like to do, but for a small but decently impactful start, remove Iron Jaws and reduce the durations of Wind/Storm and Venom/Caustic to, say, 15 and 21 seconds, respectively.

Fair enough but as personal taste, I'd hate it. I don't like juggling dots, just not my cup of tea. I find the proc and priority system a lot more interesting on that job.