Solution to Astrologian problem

[Valence]

Or maybe modern players just enjoy being actually useful to their groups. What a wild, crazy theory that'd be.

Except at the start of its introduction where it was kinda broken (like MCH), AST has after that been the most potent and sought after healer in raiding with little exception. True, SB WhM was garbage, but even then, it was extremely popular and effective in HW as well. The idea that it makes the job useless to a group has been disproved by history ten times and twice more already, no matter the rng sugarcoat on the card system, which was designed as raid buffing first and foremost and mitigating last (only the Bole actually mitigated, half of the cards were doing support like rphys used to, the other half were the desired ones most of the time for actual damage buffs).

The system that doesn't work due to rng and for the reasons you mentioned, was most of the iterations of Minor Arcana, however. That's what doesn't work well for a lot of people, but even in SB where the job was beloved by most, it didn't prevent people to just use them as they came, and pray to get more Lords than Ladies.