How do you define (meaningful) choice?

[LilimoLimomo]

Except Cleric Stance was mandatory to achieve any results in regards to DPS at least.

I certainly won't argue with that; I would just say that doing any damage as a healer back then was well above the "good enough" threshold in the majority of the game's content. In other words, in any situation where healer damage wasn't mandatory to succeed, Cleric Stance was an optional choice.

And to retiterate what I added in my previous edit (which may have been after you started your reply), I think it was a needlessly restrictive choice, one that the game is better without.