I honestly feel that if RDM launched with this change, nobody would have really thought about it. They would've just thought "Oh so my buff extends my magical rapier attacks? Neato". That's because at one point RDM was considered the mobile, easy caster. I think the real tragedies here are BLM and SMN.

I think making the backflip not the optimal damaging OGCd did more to harm Red Mage's identity than this.