Quote Originally Posted by Absurdity View Post
It is not feasible for so few people to create satisfying designs for all of these jobs, so you end up with a bunch of "palette swaps", a whole lot of different flashy sparkles and no substance.
I imagine that in an alternate reality, here's one way things could have played out:
For jobs introduced in ARR, HW, and SB, they're designed to have some core, cohesive kit and identity at Lv.50. They pick up a new aspect (mechanic, gimmick, gauge, something along those lines) from Lv.51-60, and another new aspect from Lv.61-70.

To go along with all that, the jobs have quest lines from their starting level (Lv.1, 30, or 50) through Lv.70.

Then, like many other features of the game, the jobs are effectively frozen at Lv.70. These jobs never step foot on the new expansion treadmill of, "What new button do we add this time? / What button do we remove to make room? / What if we totally redesign the job because reasons?"

Instead, for ShB, all the effort goes into making two new jobs, with kit thresholds being at Lv.60/70/80, and job quests from Lv.60 through Lv.80. And we do the same for EW, except using Lv.70/80/90.
Compared to what we have now, new jobs would be getting 20 levels worth of quests rather than 10, and those 20 levels would include the expansion they were released in. Presumably, the new jobs would be better designed than they are now because they'd be getting almost all the design effort. SE still gets to hype up new jobs each expansion.

Older jobs might feel stale, but they'd continue to fit in the era they were originally released, which is important because everything else from that era is also not receiving updates, and doing content synced is a thing.