While I never played 1.0, when I was reading about the game I found it interesting that they decided to AVOID using the "standard" Final Fantasy classes like Red Mage, Thief, Warrior, and so on. I was actually pleased that they had decided to strike out in a new direction, and the concepts for many of the classes sounded really interesting. It was a shame that the game turned out to be such a steaming pile, and I get the distinct impression that the "classic" jobs were added in to the game partially to tell players, "Sorry for all that mess, we're fixing it now. See, here's some of the classic FF jobs, so you can see we're returning to what works!"

FFXIV has been steadily devaluing those classes more and more as time passes, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that they'll eventually be completely removed. Even so, I'm a bit saddened. FFXI gave plenty of fanservice to the classic jobs, and I would have loved to see FFXIV do something NEW instead. I would have liked to have seen what CNJ, MRD, THM, and so on could have been, if they'd been allowed to take the spotlight.