Right, TP not being an issue will obviously have it's own implications in ARR, not only for bard, but for all the classes. That being said, your qualms with the job arose predominantly from 1.0 gameplay, and so I used 1.0 gameplay as the basis for my analysis.

As for bow-harps and music notes, those are simply aesthetic changes. While they should definitely help accentuate the "bard-ness" visually, they will not affect the balances that I have mentioned previously, even with TP removed from the equation. For example, in the Aion bard video, if you replaced the weapon with a bow, and the unicorn with a giant arrow, you would see that the gameplay is almost identical to that of FFXIV. The majority of the displayed animations dealt with dealing damage, and only a small portion related to support. It really is just a matter of perception.