The only change I want is sending the lancer if I come as mage instead of always the thaumaturge.

Otherwise as someone who immensely enjoys the duty support for story runs, I agree, they don't need to be faster and smarter. It's okay that parties of players outdo them by a lot. They are there to help with the story not to replace other players or be levelling support.

The duty support they implemented with ShB are the reason I even played that and Endwalker, I hate story runs with PCs. And now that PCs are no longer a necessary evil I must suffer to get what I want - the story as I enjoy it -, I enjoy running with PCs a lot more.
I got what I want with the NPCs, now let's have fun together no matter whether this a first timers run with everyone else being shakey on their skills and the mechanics or max ilevelers going on wall to wall destruction, I'll gladly go at your pace.