Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[linay]

This is a very flawed approach. If one job is vastly outperforming another, why should be accept taking the weaker one simply for diversity sake? Case in point, Ninja. There is simply no reason to bring it outside of someone wanting to play it and your group being cool with it. If that happens to be the case, cool. But I'm not going to fault someone for passing when the remaining three melee are vastly superior.

I'm not going to fault people either. It is what it is, but that's the main reason why what jobs you play matter: the players. If all jobs are viable, then it doesn't matter except for player decision to make it matter.