Indeed Jinrya-Geki I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way.

Moving on:
And what's more there's no reason that all spells "must" be the same, I only ever said base dmg, added effects: burn, slow, bind, blind, paralyze, poison, def down, attk down, eva down, stun, gravity, this list is absurdly long if you choose to look through previous FFs.
So perhaps something like
AoE is a toggle, when AoE is on, there's a base range modified by gear/traits/active abils/spell tier?
AoE on base dmg is divided between mobs hit, so if AoE tags 3 mobs they each take 33.33% of base modified per mob.
AoE on added effects still land normal, their effectiveness isn't lessened by AoE spread.

I can't for the life of me remember all of the statuses and what element they're associated with anymore but if
Tier 1
Fire == (what's fire status effect, not burn)
Water == poison
Scourge == Blind
Banish == M.Def Down
Tier 2
Element II == Elemental debuff + DoT
So:
Fire II == Burn + Str Down
Ice II == Frost + Int Down
....

I'll assume everyone sees where that's all headed.
Yes it's 12 spells on THM/BLM not counting AM, but they all absolutely serve a purpose, no matter what even now w/ only 3 elements you aren't using all of them all the time. That's kind of the thing w/ elementally aligned attacks, you always use the 1~2 that are best in a given situation. That does not mean that you should be limited to only being useful in 3/4 situations because your missing 2/3s of the elements.

I want the 6 element wheel Ice > Wind > Earth > Thunder > Water > Fire > Ice, with Light <> Dark being diametrically opposed. It was a good system, far better than Earth <> Wind and Fire <> Water, or a 3 part rock paper scissors wheel. Your a mage, you should want to think about what's best, hell that's what mages are no, the "thinkers"