There has always been downtime in fights, and Monk had trouble maintaining or using stacks of GL during the downtime back in 2.0. A LOT of the skills you listed were for those instances. I agree that Anantman has more or less been replaced by the updates to form shift, but it absolutely had uses on release. Fists of Earth isn't great (but neither is any other defensive "stance" on a dps class) but Fists of Fire and Wind are both pretty damn important to you dps, considering FoF gives you a constant 10% damage bonus and Fists of Wind gives a 4th GL stack, both of which are dependent on their respective traits. Six Sided Star is certainly niche, but there are dozens of times where a melee has to peel off a boss to avoid a mechanic and lose a GCD (which is shorter for monk because of GL) and is great for maintaining GL 3 or 4 without having to resort to 3 form shifts or standing still for Anatman.

BLM hasn't gotten a regular GCD skill since FIV. Dragoon didn't get a new GCD this expac either. Bard got Apex Arrow but is hardly exciting atm. RDM got a new "finisher" but nothing else dramatically added to its rotation. SAM had no new GCDs added this expac either. Personally I have always really liked MNK, I just hated the feeling when you lose GL and lo and behold this expac that let me keep GL and move through the course of the fight without disrupting my rhythm.

Monk's main problem in HW was it's lack of utility, so they gave MNK Brotherhood. Since then they have increased the damage of MNK substantially, tweaked it's kit to make it flow very well even if you don't use certain skills regularly (which nearly every DPS has circumstantial skills, even BLM), and now on top of making it super easy to maintain GL, MNK is competing with BLM, a zero utility job, for top dps spot in pretty much every fight. That sounds pretty fantastic to me personally. They have given MNK a ton of attention, attention that has improved the job on an order of magnitude, especially when you consider that MNK had no place in the meta 2 expacs ago, and a rough spot at the beginning of the previous expac. Now groups are pracitcally requiring MNK in their groups because of how much damage it outputs.

So I will say it again: other jobs need more attention than MNK. SAM and NIN mostly, since they occupy the same role and there should be at least some justification to bring them over MNK (which there isn't right now), and then literally every ranged dps not named BLM (which despite having 3 circumstantial skills and 4 completely useless skills, I think is pretty much a perfect class atm). Fix the glaring issues with the jobs that barely anyone wants to play, and then patch up the #1 most played job in the game that does either the most or second most damage in every fight.