My goodness. Bit of a long post incoming, but eh, servers are down and I'm not in bed yet so I'm bored.

Texa was right about one thing for sure (well, more than one thing, but this one thing stuck out to me):

Tonkra, a lot of your posts come of as EXTREMELY condescending and arrogant. "GOD! Why can't these plebs possess the deep understanding of How Final Fantasy Works, that only True Fans can understand?!!?"

That is how you come across. At least to me.

Also, you might be interested to know, O Lord and Keeper of True Final Fantasy system knowledge, that you're flat wrong about FFIX. You've mentioned it SEVERAL times now, lumping it in (as "FFVII - FFX") with the "there are no jobs because everyone can learn everything!" type games. Stiener cannot learn Fire or Thunder, because he is a Knight. Vivi cannot learn Steal, because he is a Black Mage. Nobody but Freya can Jump, because she is the Dragoon. Etc.

So how do you square your assertions that This Job Must Work This Way with the fact that FFIX was WAY more committed to each character having a job than any game in the main (e.g. FF Tactics doesn't count) series since V? And yet, Garnet and Eiko were both summoner-healers. Sure you couldn't shuffle the jobs around like in V, but each character had their job, which boxed them in heavily to certain types of abilities. VI, VII, and VIII all worked in the opposite manner (with VI, in particular, being sort of a hybrid since everyone could learn any magic spell with no restriction whatsoever aside from Umaro, yet each character also had unique skills beyond just Limit Breaks).

For that matter, what ABOUT VI, VII, and VIII? That's three games, including two of the most beloved and influential in the entire franchise, that all eschewed the concept of "summoner" entirely. ANYONE could summon whatever they wanted if they had the right item equipped. You can't just discount those because they don't suit your bizarrely obsessive class-box argument.

If you're going to talk down to people, at least know your shit.

A couple other things:
If you grant SMN a proper heal we could grant every dd a heal.. because "we want it".
Why? It's TWO DPS classes, both casters, that wold have a decent heal. No one is asking for a strong cure spell on DRGs, nor will anyone go "SMN can heal well?? Why can't I heal on DRG then??" Also note, decent - an RDM is no substitute for a full healer in situations where serious damage is coming out. It's e backup/support/emergency tool, and of course is useful for solo'ing and in PotD, but that's all. Also SMN is already not pure-DPS all day, every day... Raise!! It's the only DPS class that can raise! (well, or was, before RDM). So how does that square with your paradigm?

this is the only "unique selling point" of rdm atm
Pfft, hardly. You could just straight-up rip Vercure out of the skillset, just un-exist the entire spell from the game, and I'd still play RDM. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm happier having it, but your comment here is at best a huge stretch.

And in reference to the fact that XIV DRK is a tank:
Thats one thing that Yoshida "fucked up" at this point.
lol