Well in the previous solo Final Fantasy games, you don't really need to have tank so of course Paladin doesn't feel like the previous FF Paladin.
The only way for tank to have more players is to have them have the biggest damage too cauz you know people like them big numbers for their parser.
Ninja in FFXI was an interesting way of tanking (switching from Utsusemi: Ni to Ichi while being under fire by double attacking monsters was the thrill) but it didn't bring much people to tanking either.