Personally when I saw the changes to Pugilist it enticed me to be interested in leveling it. I find the idea of pereptual cost auras to be interesting and ponder how they'll be useful from situation to situation. Based on how much the defense bonus offers I can imagine it would be good on mobs where you are tanking but dealing more damage isn't good on the long haul. Where as the Fire aura is helpful in a group setting where you aren't taking so that you can focus more heavily on DD but if you do get hate you can just switch to the Earth Aura and limit the amount of damage you take.

When Monk comes along you can then use a Wind aura to enhance your ability to use your Counter ability, while you may not think it to be effective in terms of stunning it's effect comes from it's low TP cost and near instant reusability. As long as they don't change the recast of counter abilities I can see the Wind Aura being really useful against mobs with low Accuracy.

GLA/PLD have a shield, with the ability to limit the damage they take and with shield blocks counter, Mrd/WAR have the ability to parry counter which I believe comes in the form of full negate damage and partially negating damage, but they don't have a perpetual move that'll keep their parry rate constant and can only rely on a single move that can increase rate of parry once before the effect dissapears. PUG/MNK has evasion countering with the same concept as the MRD ability to increase evasion until you evade but it also has the added effect of restoring MP upon evading. There is also that one ability Monk gets:
"Prevents target from executing actions or moving. MP is continually consumed while effect is active. Effect fades upon executing an action, or if you or the target sustain damage." My guess is it's either a Grapple or Shadowbind and the MP cost will most liklely be high to use as well as the recas tto use it again, but the move itself does open up the potential to give your party a breather if things are turning bad, if it does work on NMs lol. I can imagine Monks being very useful at giving their party time to regroup their plan if a move ends up eliminating a big portion of the party, they can fire this ability and maybe hold the mob for a minute or two while people get back on their feet or attempt to recover MP.

But ya, honestly I don't see much worry for Pugilist, with how they are being setup, I'd say they are given a nice bit of flexibility with how they can efficient in combat.