Don't being played as much as a PLD don't give WAR the right to have the status they have or avoid nerfs, popularity and balance are 2 different things, PLD have clear disaventages compared to WAR who Excell on every enviroment.
Popularity of a job depend of many things, gameplay, lore, aesthetic and impact on combat.

In resume when several jobs have equal performance and good gameplay feelings the pick rate are highly impacted by personal preferences and aesthetics like WAR and PLD now despite WAR being superior in everything but the things that PLD are inferior are pretty much irrelevant on raid or can be fixed with planification.
On the other hand why a popular job like DRK or MCH in HW fall this expansion? For aesthetics? No, for performance issues and low impact in combat, when a job have such low pick rates compared to they conterparts are always for performance issues and need being fixed.
And if a job who is cleary superior on almost everything is not pick like his brother it's not bcs the other is better, it's bcs ppl don't like the rampage axe madman style.