Yes and Yes! I never played a lot of red mage in FFXI because of this. FFXI-RDM had some cool spells that boosted melee attacks but were never used in party play.

I totally agree that RDM combos should include melee+spell actions, great thought! And i kinda like the idea of attack spells costing TP, but i think it should cost both TP and MP, but a small amount of TP. Something like 250-500 TP and 100 MP. Free TP when used in a combo.