The thing that I truly don't understand - especially with regards to support skills that had a specific function but dealt damage in tandem - is that if the problem, in the dev team's eyes, was the fact these skills were being used for a DPS increase versus the stun/silence utility, why did that necessitate removing them entirely as innate actions and putting them into role skills?

Would it not have made more sense to simply alter existing abilities to suit that need? For example, WAR and DRK could've kept Brutal Swing and Low Blow, but both abilities could've been changed to A). remove the damage potency and B). inflict a combined stun/silence effect. This same change could've been made to PLD's Shield Bash; in fact, Shield Bash could've been made an oGCD and the reset timer on all three abilities standardized to 15s. That solves the issue of having to give up a role slot to something that a lot of content in game assumes is innately available to the tank jobs, while retaining flavor animations without sacrificing standardized utility.