What if: Stances were removed?

[Shurrikhan]

Pros: <Only if replaced with something that creates more a higher skill-cap based on more active capitalization of one's offenses and defenses.>

Cons: Loss of much of the flexibility and enjoyment of tanking as we know it.

EDIT: If we're just talking button-bloat, the obvious path is simply to allow stacked mutually exclusive skills within a single hotbar slot (e.g. Defiance/Deliverance, Shield Oath/Sword Oath, Inner Beast / Fell Cleave, Whirling Thrust / Fang & Claw). That won't remove the fact that a Paladin or Warrior, for instance, are each wasting an entire ability (Sword Oath / Deliverance) on what a Dark Knight accomplishes by simply turning Grit off, or that the Paladin spends more mana in total and twice the GCDs in order to do so, but it will at least reduce their button-bloat to that of a Dark Knight. Additionally, the Paladin can still separate the two binds if he wants to drop Shield Oath just before a Goring Blade, and only then activate Sword Oath (rushing the DoT at cost of 1 embonused auto-attack... not usually worthwhile).