Samurai from 4.0 were no different from now- they want to line up their rotations to maximize party buffs. Nothing has changed on that front. BLMs also benefit from buff windows, every class does. When Yoshi-P said that BLM don't have raise or party buffs, he meant they don't bring any, not that they don't benefit from them. He believes SAM is similar to BLM in that regard which is why buffs are coming.

The only thing that's has changed with SAM is that we're slightly more bursty than before. If anything, the changes to 5.0, namely the replacing of Hagakure with Ikishoten, has been the real issue. SAM used Hagakure as a way to control their combat flow so they could line up with burst windows much easier and keep rotations smooth. We've always wanted to line ourselves up with others to maximize our DPS, ever since the class was first introduced. Ikishoten and changes to our buffs have unfortunately given us the opposite- a clumsy rotation that's much harder to line up properly.

If Hagakure came back in it's old form, Shoha got changed (which is happening) and if we got a few potency buffs to put us closer to BLM, the job would be perfect, imo.

But the overall battle design of the job has not changed at all.