Didn't play FFXI but my main here is BRD. I went into the game knowing BRD was going to be my main, though.. I love playing archer classes so I knew this was a good fit for me. Mainly a DPS role but since singing adds the support, you're definitely expected to do it.

Do SCH instead of SMN (winkink). I know if you get really good at crafting you can make tons of gil, but it also requires investing in tons of gil, and while I make okay amounts with only one crafting class maxed, my friend who as all crafting classes maxed and is progressing towards endgame for crafters makes exponentially more. So having all crafters maxed is good to make money. Some people farm the endgame Coils for materials to sell, and that makes a pretty penny.

For number 2, really things like archer/rogue, put everything in DEX, lancer/pugilist put everything in STR, etc. The only slightly hard one is arcanist, depending on if you want to go the SMN or SCH route. There are ingame items you can get to reset the attribute distribution though, in case you feel you mess up.

Any tips? If you do bard sing your songs oooooh my god the amount of bards I see standing around doing nothing is abysmal.

Umm, my fav job to play as? Of course bard, but I tried out Scholar because I wanted to try at healing but I found CNJ so boring I thought I was going to fall asleep...still need to level it, but I really love playing as SCH. It has the right amount of heal, DPS, heal, DPS that prevents me from getting bored.