Dev Team, you screwed up.

[Ilyrian]

Just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean there's no possible way.

That's kind of an invitation for you to offer your ideas of how this can be achieved - if any. Conversation and all.

People were saying the same thing about Red Mage before it came out-- "How do we release RDM without it just being BLM again?" Well, they managed it. There's nothing stopping them from doing the same for a Blue Mage.

There's been a pretty noticeable backlash against RDM being a generic caster clone.

It looks nice and it's flashy but it's hardly the caster-melee-healer hybrid many imagined.

Edit: This whole conversation is basically moot as the people that are complaining about the BLU we have now will complain about the BLU we get if they decide to bring it in line with the other classes.
Such is the nature of things.