I agree with your post in general terms. But there are things that bother me more than the sequences within the dual wheel. One aspect of the game has irked me no end after the new class skills, and subsequently the job skills, were implemented: Namely, the fact that, in order to preserve the nuking power of two different casting classes, and to make the elemental separation, the reduction of the number of spells, and the consolidation of combos and AoE effects mutually compatible, the effects of the elements were rendered fuzzy and ambiguous.

The elemental wheel, which--at least in theory--was there (and has been there in many games) as a sort of backbone helping define the theory behind spell-casting and its effects, has instead become muddled with ambiguity, and confusing at the very least. Where the result was supposed to be a feeling of resourcefulness and specificity in certain actions. leading to understanding and maximizing power, spells instead were doomed never to acquire such specificity. Nowadays casting Stone instead of Fire has to do more with what you have available in your actions palette, rather than any effect you desire for your spell, and these decisions and effects don't seem to respond to the elemental wheel logic.

I want an element-biased world, I want a series of lore-supported rules determining those biases, and I want, as a THM/BLM which has come to be the elementalist in this game, to be able to strategize my attacks based on those biases and that lore. Making the CNJ/WHM and the THM/BLM divide among themselves the few elemental spells that were left after the class skill rehash, and the consequent elimination of the AoE toggle, has deprived them of variety, depth and richness and made us into indiscriminate nukers at best.

In all fairness, this game has never had a clearly defined set of elemental-bias rules. Tanaka's initial monstrosity didn't seem to have any gears underneath its surface claims that there was elemental differentiation. After Yoshida's fix, we at least notice a weak sense of elemental bias. But I, and many of my fellow players, don't find this to be enough.

I hope this game somehow manages to find its lost north in the elemental wheel.

R