Everquest had some pretty sweet support roles. I remember you couldn't have a group without an enchanter for haste and slow. Really interesting and fun dynamic no doubt.

Rift had a support class when i played it, Archon I think it was? It was mandatory in every raid comp. Then they tried to force support on the 5 man group composition and in the end everyone queued support and then swapped into their dps class right away and violently chastised for trying to actually support.

Support classes are, as already said, force multipliers. WoW completely ruined the idea of the support class by giving support essentially no tools or abilities to actually make the raid function better. Support has a place in 'Holy Trinity' MMOs, but it has absolutely no place in group sizes less than 5 (6 is ideal imho - 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps, 1 support). Otherwise the support aspect cannot compete with direct damage when there are no group members to support, forcing most groups to discard support classes in favor of additional raw dps.

In a full party? Maybe... 2 tank, 2 heals, 3 dps, 1 hybrid-support. It just ends up like Bard at that point though... a crappy dps with a few songs. If archer ever gets a true dps job, I feel like bard will become largely obsolete. Unless your healers need mana song or you are stacked with casters groups would probably prefer pure dps over bards current form.

Support classes have a place in MMOs and can be an exciting and engaging role to play for many people. However, in WoW and its clones (including FFXIV) I don't think we'll ever see any true support. Just raw dps and subpar dps with some group-wide supporty abilities.