Are monks really that bad?

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

I still have fun playing my Monk, granted a lot of that is probably because I love fighting games so it sorta scratches that itch for me.
I also started as a Pugilist on my character way back.

My issue can basically be summarized that there's no sense of progression like with other jobs.
On my BLM for example I go from throwing puny little fireballs, to throwing puny little fireballs that trigger an explosion, to throwing big AoE explosions, to throwing huge targeted explosions consistenly to mastering the void to mastering it even further etc.
But on my Monk it basically feels the same throughout and like there's not any real feeling of progression.
On my BLM I feel like my character has grown and become a master BLM, but on my Monk I don't really feel like my character have grown much at all.
I mean is there not supposed to be much of a difference between just a Monk and a Master Monk? Or heck even between a Monk and a Pugilist?

Again I still enjoy Monk, it doesn't play bad.
It's moreso that I am disappointed and feel like every other job have a progression to them that Monk doesn't have.

The sad thing is the level 60 job quest for MNK left so much to be explored and felt like the next expansion (Stormblood) would easily be able to capitalise on it and expand further. But they completely side stepped everything in regards to the 7 chakras of Light and Dark; at least in terms of player evolution. There was also the harnessing of life energy too, leading to the NPC gaining the super saiyan aura and firing off Chi blasts etc. There was a lot of potentially cool things, none of which got expanded on.

Extremely disappointing. (Video for Lv60 MNK Quest from back in HW)

In terms of the OP though, SpeckledBurd basically gave you a full in-depth perspective of MNK's issues. It's not that it's a bad DPS per se. Rather, it just FEELS bad to play comparatively to other jobs over the years. For a first time MNK that hasn't had years of playing it you may think it's really awesome and fun because it's new and fresh, but for people that have mained and played it consistently over the expansions it has become a shell of itself unfortunately and the once selfish high risk high reward job that it started out as, has sadly come and gone and has been stuck in this place of boring mediocrity for 3 years.