No! back then BLM have far less mobility which make most of them a rather meh output, thats the biggest reason BLM is excluded too hard to use in full potencial...

Now? Farrr easier to use lots of teleport wider damage gap so that even a medicore BLM still have higher damage than the greater SMN/RDM

Btw right now in jpn server lots of party exclude RDM but not SMN again the reason is not RDM is bellow SMN in DPS in fact its a little above SMN right now, the reason they excluded RDM is lots of low player skill (at least they think so) and high death rate for RDM (proven by number from a certain site)