I think people are just used to a certain way of playing and are annoyed when "outside the box" players try to change it up a bit. In FFXI I went to merit PTs as Dancer to heal and several people actually left the party cuz I wasn't a traditional healer. Yet at the end of the day, Dancer provided more damage to the party than a mage would all while keeping everyone alive and hasted.

Point is, hats off to you for looking for more effective/fun ways to change up the monotony of dungeon grinding. (Although I do think you should've cast protect and then swapped abilities back to cleric stance)