The thing is though, if they're going to go with jobs as being throwbacks to classic Final Fantasy jobs, which they are, then BLM IS an elementalist at its core. Elemental nukes have always been the primary staple of BLMs.
Also, we CAN still look to lore, because they aren't going to rewrite it to fit new additions. They're going to make new additions that add to the lore we already have. Creating more lore to flesh out the already established world has been one of Yoshi's major goals from the start. So the lore we have is perfectly valid to speculate off of.
As far as the recent changes go, they were really only a quick bandaid fix to hold us over until they did the actual redo. I believe they gave CNJ Cure/Curaga/Raise because at the time, CNJ already HAD Cure/Raise, and it was easier at the time to just add to it instead of trying to rearrange abilities before they were ready to.