Ranged DPS, choose a weakness that would justify a buff

[Cetonis]

Casters in general SHOULD be higher damage than physical ranged

Yes, I said that. Don't straw man. Never did I say ranged should do just as much as other roles, in fact I literally said they shouldn't. It was the very first sentence, even.

But, that doesn't mean that casters have to deal as much as 10% more. If every non-ranged dps deals 10% more than the best ranged, that's when you're in the zone of taking a ranged at all becoming bad. 4-6% or so is closer to where you want to be. Basically, we're merely lucky right now that there are only those two or three outlier jobs.

As for SMN vs. BLM, I'd agree that SMN should do a bit less than BLM. But that's unrelated to the gap between ranged and non-ranged being larger than is probably ideal.