Quote Originally Posted by Xenosan View Post
Giving trinity-breaking role diversity to RDM would leave other jobs in the same role asking for the same. Until they are given the same balance you'd have issues like in pre-Aht Urgan FFXI where certain RDM and WAR builds were game-breakingly beyond other classes and the standard tank/healer/refresher/DD structure.

SE could never (or more they simply chose not to) fix that imbalance without destroying the original party structure. Which is what ended that game's prominence, imo. FFXI was competing with WoW up until then and provided a "more true" (only way I can describe it) MMO experience (imo, obviously).
I see no issue with letting other jobs also move out of the rigid trinity somewhat, as long as design moves more or less as one, rather than leaving obvious favorites for these new ventures.

You've mentioned the true issue itself. They chose to ignore glaring imbalance issues. That's generally pretty bad. However, I don't think movement from the original party structure would otherwise have had much to do with FFXI's downturn, if at all. WoW itself turned further away from hybrids with every single expansion, often to criticism. FFXI having some diversity by no means broke its competitive banking against WoW. But any negligence in implementation certainly can, and likely did.