Well I skipped from page 10 to here, but giving my thoughts anyways.

I was a Dragoon till 2.3, and it is a great job with a nice learning curve, but after gearing up and getting good at my MNK, I can't even go back to DRG. I am someone who loves speed in my DPS. It works out for me much better. DRG was great, but to my personal taste, I was not a fan with the amount of DoT/Buff management you had to do (Chaos Thrust, HT buff, Phlebotomize, Disembowel), not managing one of them properly was very bad for your DPS. MNK to me feels less stressful on that. Knowing your rotation and learning to how to properly keep up Greased Lightning 3 in every boss fight is just something more fun to deal with. Like I said, DRG is an awesome job also, but MNK just hit a right note for me.

Anyways, the point from that is, the two feel like completely different jobs. You can't be good at one and if you switch immediately be good at another. There are major differences in performing damage despite both being melee DPS. If all jobs played the same, naturally I should of just known MNK from the second I switched, right? Wrong. I spent so much time practicing on dummies and lower ilvl content to know how to work with it properly, then worked it into the raiding scene, completely replacing my DRG.

OP's post is funny because I knew at least 2-3 pages in it would become a discussion about FFXI or a WoW clone, and no surprise, there was the OP calling out WoW players and praising FFXI's job design. Jobs were fun and unique in FFXI, no one will argue that. The issue is you create an unbalance that ultimately would never get fixed unless you are constantly doing overhauls of the job, which is not fair to developers or players who like the job.

You truly believe that the community will not segregate groups to create the least resistance possible? You think it is an elitist thing excluding jobs to favor fast and efficient? Sorry, its not a MMO thing, it isn't even a gamer thing, its complete human nature to make things as convenient and easy as possible. From the invention of the wheel to the iPhone, people want the least resistance in getting things done. You can't change it, and when people do find a way to make a fight easier like Titan-Egi's on Ramuh, you can guarantee the mass majority of players will use it. Name me how many players actually do what was intended in Turn 5 when Twintania uses her dive bombs. Everyone goes to the sweet spot where she can't hit you.

While the balance in this game isn't perfect by any means, it is definitely one of the most balanced MMO's I have ever played. Ultimately at the end of the day, every job is more than viable for any content, and diversity in groups is actually encouraged in many ways. I have tried out each job to an extent and I can safely agree that each one feels very different from each other. The OP needs to do better research and actual data to support it. If not, it is his ass speaking on his behalf.