Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Saefinn]

Not meaning to disapprove of your final solution, I very much want it, but just want to add another reason against upping healer uptime to 90%:

Assuming no changes to healer kits, if healers have 90% uptime but sage is the only one that's able to consistently output damage during it (aside from Assize, Star etc. since those are like 400 pot per minute) then it becomes way too OP. Sorry but I can't fathom how SGE can exist in a world where everyone needs to be a curebot with balance in mind.

That's fair and something I did not consider, because with that configuration SGE would have a higher rDPS and people would just pick SGE. So it is possible then if they took this approach then they would either have to add damage to more healing spells on other jobs or take away that part of SGE and knowing their track record it'd be the latter rather than the former. The former, however, would not be so bad, but given the solution I was describing was with the "healers heal not DPS" crowd in mind and the steps that would require healers to be engaging with the current design then it'd be the latter option it'd follow.

Which of course doesn't work with those who're on the side of healer/DPS hybrid. Though I feel ultimately the reason the healer/DPS hybrid approach is the best solution is because the game was designed to favour that approach, which makes sense because it was how healers were designed originally. And it is further evidenced by the fact we have huge downtimes of spamming 1 or 2 buttons. Hence it would be a lot of work to satisfy the "healers heal and are not DPS" camp, because although it looks like it on paper, how healers are designed don't favour that mentality either because it's not just healer design that controls this.

It's correct that they manage to satisfy people that come for the story and music, or FF themes. But they like to deliberately excuse job and role design decisions around those players in mind. Holding back players because others cannot manage to accomplish the same results is a terrible idea. One man's frustration can make up for a thousand, and the silent majority do not set trends. As I have said, all of these choices are made by the developers themselves.

They should introduce optional difficulties. If most players are unable to play at an efficent pace, it makes sense to accommodate them this way. If they are bothered by pressing more than 1-2 buttons, I don't see what's hard by giving them the option to do that. I just don't want to be treated the same way honestly.

I mean, if you're in a dungeon and your healer is spamming Glare or Holy when there's a bigger range of options available, how many people in that party are going o complain about that healer's performance? I reckon maybe a small handful. Because how many people sit there and criticise how well their DRG or their NIN or their MNK are performing? Or any of the tanks for that matter, if you don't see PLD use their full DPS kit do we see people complain? And PLD has a few facets to their DPS kit but they can still perform well enough on their base kit.

I feel like the people who'd be most affected are those at the higher end trying to maximise their own DPS contribution, so it's extra steps for them, I'd argue those at that higher level of play are in a position where they can handle it, especially if we take the kind of approach we had with SCH where your skills are worked gradually and between heals and not a combo like DRG or MNK or to the same level of complexity. Or if it's like SGE where there is a dual purpose of healing and DPS in their spells. I get some might not want to do that, but I'd wager they'd still at least enjoy the role and if we're looking for a happy medium, there's compromises somewhere on each level (even on mine)