Paladin is a tank, Bard has mp songs if u check the jobs carefully you will see that what SE wants is not a PLD, WHM and rest BLM party, they want all classes to be needed, in the Ant princess fight (that i havent beat yet) you actually see this strategy shown more clearly.

You need a full tank (PLD) a trash tank (WAR) a healer (WHM) a buffer (BRD) and AoE damage dealers almost every other damage dealing job has AoE ws, so u can go with a 2nd BRD DRG's MNK's or an extra WAR or BLM's, thats the thing we were missing an especific role and right now you can only complete certain role and thats it, that makes things easier for every class/job now you wont get to be the class/job of the month like we were....