Why are there no skill trees?

[Saccharin]

For example, I play a Paladin, if there were traits that boosted the effectiveness of my healing, or allowed me to raise in battle, or boost my ATK or DEF, boost my VIT or HO directly, or increase parry and dodging rates or block strength. I could choose between making a tank with more healing ability, one that contributes more to DPS, one that is even more of a defensive tank able to withstand more damage, or a Paladin that lives up to the billing of creating a dance with shield and blade to deflect and avoid damage while keeping the enemy attention.

I would like it if the attribute points you earn while levelling could be put into secondary stats and not your primary since it makes no sense not to put it into your main throughput stat or vitality.

I wish cross job skills would get fixed. Some jobs have nice cross skills but some have a poor choice and when it is good it's severely neutered. Cure on pally springs to mind.

Problem is those systems are hard to balance and almost never make everyone happy.

They always have a thin veneer of "Play how you want!" attached but we all know they end up with a game that has one very specific spec per encounter and the min/maxers will rage on anyone who doesn't use it.

It adds depth but rarely affords more freedom of customization.

Indeed that's why Blizzard decided to go down the path they did. Hybrid builds were either complete junk or in some rare cases they were very overpowered. Most people went with the theorycrafted best spec.

The only game that offers that (from what I know) is Rift. Each calling (class) has nine souls (trees) and you pick three to make your build. Putting points into a specific role tree increases your effectiveness in that role. If you want a damage build pick three damage trees and you'll get the full benefit. Put your points into a tank tree and get survivability etc. Some people don't like it but I do. If you want to be good at single target damage then put the all the points you can in a single target soul if you want an AoE soul then place most points in that. If you want a hybrid then you have neither a best single target or AoE build. To balance it they have had to neuter lower branches of the tree though.