It can be as streamlined and balanced as they like. If it's not fun there's no point.

Summoner has gone from a relatively engaging job to utterly brain dead. Paladin has managed to acquire a 2% damage loss for pretty much nothing. Monk has been reworked time and time again - and for what? It's still highly underplayed. The only logical reason black mage hasn't been turned into fire4stacks and desparal rend is that a dev who will remain nameless primarily plays it.

This simplification has resulted in every savage fight this tier having body check after body check, vanishingly little boss positioning, 2 fights outright not having positionals, 4/5 bosses having bleed tankbusters lasting longer than invulns, all presumably as a result of this new combat design they're pushing. However I will blame the abnormally tight dps checks on the 2 minute thing rather than simplification.

This direction seems completely miserable to me. Maybe it could work with a borrowed power system or regular game lost actions, but it's just so anaemic.

Regarding cover, I don't see any issues allowing it to share mitigation or having an innate one - after all dark knight gets an entire extra mit of its own and doesn't seem to be that penalised for it.