Bring Back Kaiten

[Carighan]

Yes, but most people like for optimization to have a reward. Imagine if every mechanic were purely cosmetic. How many Ultimate raiders would feel engaged therein? Hell, how many players who just aren't Netflix-and-Broil casual, even?

But that's the thing, the vast majority are. The majority of 1-2-3 combos for example have no reason to exist. They could be cleanly replaced with a single button that first tries to cash in X stacks of a self buff for some effect, and if not adds 1 such stack on the player. Average out the damage, you just removed a combo at exactly 0 loss of gameplay and functionality. The combo is purely cosmetic, to support 3 different animations despite factually only having a single gameplay effect.

Effects such as Senei and Guren likewise only exist to support an extra animation and pretend the job is more complex than it is, plenty other games solve this via a CD-based proc. At no loss of gameplay, in particular because in FFXIV we are on a fixed schedule of 120s anyways, so deviation for optimization purposes is always a fixed affair where an optimal solution has been pre-computed and you just have to play the monkey and press the buttons in that order (modulo the fight mechanics but that again leads to 1 single static optimal solution for each fight at most, usually it's 2-3 for a whole expansion however).

I get what you mean, but what you describe as the bad hypothetical case is what we have. That's after all my big issue with the current combat system and class design, that 20+ buttons and so many lengthy tooltips all come together to achieve a gameplay depth of about a puddle and exactly 0 player agency. Even in the specific case you mention, player-agency wise knowing which skill to press Kaiten for and which not to is no different than knowing when to pool gauge and when not to. It's a simple rote memorization thing, not actual interaction or agency.

(edit)
I should add, I think the idea behind Kaiten or something akin to it is pretty damn cool, but it's previous incarnation is no better (but also no worse) than the replacement. Neither offers gameplay worth mentioning, in fact I'd argue neither are worse a hotbar spot and the whole gauge of Samurai serves no purpose and could be cleanly removed. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't want gameplay focused around preparing enhancements for the next attack, after all Warlocks in DAoC were a fantastic idea and actually fit really well in the context of that game. The underlying idea is awesome!