An idea to make classes more interesting (wall of text warning)

[Vagrant-0]

they lacked a final fantasy feel and lacked a 'job identity.'

That is one of the issues when you start allowing things to be brought from other classes or by allowing a character to become more generalized as they pick up more talents. But I believe how I have suggested things would still allow for each class to still excel in their current implementations (improved skills and traits cannot transfer). It also would not have any significant effect in how existing job roles would be handled as the number of cross-class skills available to jobs still remain mostly restricted.

We already have this to some degree in the Arcanist class. Arcanist is a class that can function as dps, healer, and tank by means of their pet, and even after opening up scholar/summoner, their methods of healing, dps, and tanking are very different than every other class due to the mechanics involved. Likewise, with all classes, there are specific mechanics, traits, or aesthetics which make them uniquely appealing.

The skills mentioned were chosen not because they fell into a laundry list of "wouldn't it be cool if" type stuff, but rather because those skills would not allow for any new abilities that were not already accounted for in current or future skills.

This will lead to "You need all 50's to do this dungeon".

Not quite. This is why stats have a cap based on level of current class and why the total number of points you can spend does not allow you to raise everything. At current, the difference between 0 and 20 points in any stat is little more than the difference between DL and AF2, or just what materia you have equipped. While putting 50 points in vitality would give you more health across the board for all classes, by design this would also leave you with fewer points to spend in those stats which are central to your primary job. A person specializing in 2 stats, vitality and intelligence, while being able to live longer and do more damage magic attacks would be, by comparison, be gimping their ability to function in other classes which do not have any great benefit from these two statistics.

Even from a "all classes to 50" mentality, this really isn't too meaningful in the greater scheme of things, and people will end up raising everything to 50 anyway just out of boredom and waiting between instances (most are already doing this even without linked benefits). There would still be min/maxing, as this will always exist. But the actual effect of this is minimized due to how the existing class system, equipment system, and materia system is implemented (once there is more to life than AF2 grind). Nevermind the fact of how dungeon mechanics are designed, where even 2000 extra health on a BMG does not mean much when that health is gone in 2 hits due to the low defense of worn equipment. Dungeons an encounters can also always be adjusted to help balance around this.