OP: I understand your concerns but I think it'll work out okay in the end.

1. Anything pre-rank 30 is mostly for small groups and/or quick kill exping. In an exp party, you really should only need to heal the tank 1-2 times a mob (possibly not even that often). Most of your focus should actually be on DD Magic and buffs as the quicker the party kills the less healing you need to do.

2. Every class has at least 1 form of self-heal or extra defense moves. So everyone should be able to heal themselves if they need it. Again, I'm thinking that SE with the exp chain system saw EXP party play as more of a 'solo play with friends' thing. Meaning everyone plays their class in 'zerg' style (all out DD) and only bothers healing themselves/each other as needed.

3. While only having one cure spell might make some things more challenging as a rank 25-30 player (Toto-rak bosses and Ifrit rank 25 quest), overall if they gave CNJ more of a variety of Cures early on, it would have made the class less-soloable (which the Dev's strongly wished to retain) and honestly, more boring. As there really isn't a lot of curing to be done pre-rank 30.

4. I really believe that parties pre-rank 30 can really be made up out of whatever adventurers you can shlep together (sorta like how behest use to be). So if you can only recruit 4MRDS and 4 Archers, you'll still exp at a decent rate and survive as well as a 'balanced, traditional' party.

5. If CNJ learned more healing spells early on, then it would make White Mage seem less unique and important when it is released. Keep in mind post rank 30, you can be White Mage Job and still earn exp as CNJ.

6. Even post rank 30, CNJ should still be more of a DD Mage/Buffer than an actual healer in about 80% of in-game situations. Most of the time, we don't need a mega-healer in the background. Rather just someone with a reliable Cure Bomb or two. It's only on Longer Battles or crazy AOE stuff, where healing spells will be more important than the extra damage.

So I guess in conclusion, technically there is NO true dedicated healer until post rank 30. But that being said, the content pre-rank 30 has been adjusted and written with this in mind. (Every class has at least one self-heal/self def and every class can equip cure once they learn it)