What about creating an ACTUAL Dark Knight?

[Reynhart]

DRGs are the most tanky jobs in all FFs with their ability to have higher than average HP, good armor, and a 100% evasion skill that also does dmg.

The first attribute of a tank is to focus all attacks on him, what MMO call enmity. In that regard, DRG are the absolute worst tank precisely because they force the ennemy to hit somebody else.

Put cecil in the back row, and he's just a bad healer. (i tried this for my low level play through, he could survive big bang on occasion, but was too useless back there.)

Put Cecil in the back row, and he only take scratch damage, far lower than his capacity to heal himsel, which is why a Cecil solo run is just a piece of cake.

Provoke yes, though useless outside of FFX.

It was always useful to make sure weaker characters don't take hits.

Cover, not so much, since its too rare of an occurrence, which cant be properly controlled. Its better suited for offense.

In FFIV, you can manually decide who you want to Cover, on top of automatically Covering anyone with critical HP, again, ensuring that weaker target don't take too much hits.

It COULD act as an actual means to protect allies from damage in the future games, like it does in XIV.

It does, it always did.

But you'd protect the squishies far more by sticking them in the back row in FF4. Putting non squishies in the front row. Thats the most effective tactic for protecting them from dmg.

Back row characters still take damage. If they're at critical HP, they would still die if not covered.