Good post, but some things I'll want to nitpick a bit.

Quote Originally Posted by Eagleheart View Post
Paladin is no better at dealing with magic attacks than Warrior. Until 1.22a hotfix, it was, in fact, worse, due to Fighter's Cuirass/Vengeance. Hallowed Ground is 15 minutes, and so does not give Paladin a real edge against magic monsters, as it's a 20-second desperation ability, on a long cooldown, not something you use to keep damage manageable throughtout a fight.
Indeed. Overt damage mitigation (my suggested 80%) would have worked better, but that's because I'm weary of things that avoid damage entirely or grant damage immunity. It looks good on paper, until you realize that it's keeping your job/class from getting X ability or X adjustments because you have an ability that makes you immune to damage (the harbinger of the "plate,bubble,healz" argument).

That being said, the last sentence alludes to PLD needing a defensive cooldown ability. And I definitely agree here.

- Removal of enmity bonus from Phalanx hurt. A lot.
No, seriously. Phalanx was actually useful when it had an enmity bonus. Now, it's just a low-damage throwaway, or opener for Spirits once a minute.
Wait, so Phalanx had an enmity bonus? Who made the stupid decision of removing enmity bonuses from what is effectively a counter-attack ability? Either buff Phalanx damage or give it the enmity bonus back.

Paladin fails to be a superior single-target tank.

Paladin fails to be a superior multiple-target tank.

Paladin fails to be a superior offensive tank.

Paladin fails to be a superior defensive tank.
I'm more of the mind that PLD and WAR should be in the tank pool. Situation should not determine which of the two you take, just whether Bob the WAR or John the PLD is on when you're asking in LS "any tanks around to run this dungeon with us?". Performance between the two should be as close to equal as possible.

Paladin cannot even adequately defend itself, let alone party members. The concept of Cover is slightly flawed in XIV, because if your target is out amongst the mages, your most immediate problem is not the physical attacks the mob will deal to its current target, but rather, the powerful AOEs that it will use instead. Cover does not actually provide much in the way of protecting the party.
Cover could be changed to toggle ability, where you use it on a target and it remains on the target so long as they are 10 yalms from the PLD. Could have it either provide notable damage reduction (10-15%?) or have it give slight damage reduction for so long as the target is close to the PLD (3-5%), and transfer 10% of the enmity generated to the PLD.

Anyway, I agree with the OP. There's still much to be done to get PLD up and running. Wish SE would hurry it up, because having PLD as my only job at level cap is a bit depressing right now. =/