Why did SE decide to make the three new classes not require base classes?

[Teslo]

Second, changing the cross-class system into a cross-skill system would require a lot of recoding and rebalancing work that the dev-team may not have time for. It may actually be a bit more beneficial if that'd let them give us more options for bringing skills over to other classes, but when compared to the work it requires...I'd rather have new content, not remade content.

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the "Dev Team" isn't just a single entity that works on one thing at a time. You've got the battle systems teams, the design teams (SSSSS... Plural! ;P), the Item/Equipment teams, the lore teams, the content teams, etc etc etc. While there is a group of teams constantly working on updates and keeping current content interesting, there's another whole set of teams working on the next expansion, and with a game as big as WoW (And likely FFXIV if it keeps going...) the expansion after that, too. What you often see is a group working on the expansion, and when that expansion hits they're the "Primary" team that adds content during that expansion while the previous team goes ahead and starts on the next expansion in the queue.

For a big update like the class/job revamp, Yoshi tells the appropriate expansion team, "We want to change the way this feature works in the game. Start working on that for your expansion." In this way the expansion team can add extra manpower to devote to that task so they don't lose progress on things like content, new jobs, new races, new zones, etc.

Sorry for the wall of text, but once I started I just couldn't stop, heh.

Don't apologize for having something to say. :P Gods know I've done the same thing in almost every response I've made. :P