I've gotten used to using WM now on my bard character, though I can't entirely say whether I actually enjoy it now or not. I realize the usefulness of it as far as boosting my own damage goes, especially for making up as a baseline for the damage loss I take by using Mage's Ballad or etc. And Empyreal Arrow is fun to use in itself, since it feels like one of the better damage skills now especially paired with how Barrage works (plus the animation is just cool).

Just personally, the initial reason I went to Bard was the mobility of it. I knew when I started it that the class wouldn't ever reach the heights of damage that a Black Mage or Dragoon could dish out, but I hated (at the time) magic classes and already had plenty of melee classes, so when I decided to pick up a new dps class after I leveled my tank to 50, Bard was my first choice. And it's felt like part of Bard's appeal was taken away with the addition of WM. Yes, I realize I could just not use it - and for a while I refused to, thinking the loss of my auto-attack and ability to move freely while attacking was more valuable in the long run. And I can't say I've entirely lost that mindset, just now I also realize WM does boost my class by a lot - enough to make due with the cast bars, which are admittedly far shorter than a healer's or any magic user's are.

Of course, at this point I'm changing my Bard character to Summoner for various reasons (one of which being what I mentioned about feeling as if Bard's initial draw is gone now, though that's honestly the least of my reasons). But I do still enjoy the class (WM and all) enough to roll a second Bard to make up for the upcoming change to my current one's class.

I do feel like WM should have been added far before level 50, or at least our skills should have been more tailored to it from the get-go, as now when you hit 50 and move on to gain WM, it's a very drastic change in playstyle compared to 1-50's experience, which can very well turn people off from the class entirely if they weren't aware of WM's existence beforehand. As someone mentioned a while back, Machinist feels like it was built from the ground up with Gauss Barrel in mind, so the shift to it doesn't feel as drastic (and honestly, I feel like before Gauss Barrel, Machinist feels mega slow for both auto attacks as well as actual skills - but that could just be my perception based on the skill animations).

I hope a middle ground can be found for Bard primarily, but Machinist as well if necessary - I do see the benefits of WM, but I also feel like the change to the class was rather drastic given how long we went without it.