I've played healers in several MMO's and they all DPS to some extent, it's just to a much lesser extent typically and there was only two options so there was always the Main Healer and the Off Healer roles. Personally? I like optimizing my DPS in raid content, etc. I like that I don't have to spend forever healing people, it's a welcome change from the previous MMO's I've played. That being said, the balance in this game is entirely off when it comes to healers and that part completely sucks, especially since my main is the benched healer and has been since HW.

The last time I had a fight where I needed to heal the majority of the time or face the possibility of a wipe was in T13, but it wasn't because I couldn't DPS at all, it was because if I took too much MP to DPS then I'd have none to heal up the gobs of damage being done at certain parts of the fight. So there was a balance to be had which is no longer the case.

With scripted fights, the introduction of AST and the change in raids + bigger MP pools and more MP restore, DPS is on the rise naturally. Back in the day when T10-13 were relevant, the optimal stats were Determination and Piety. xD How far things have changed! lol