You two have absolutely no idea why ranged tax is a thing lol
It has nothing to do with survivability

It has everything to do with the fact that in Stormblood there was an rphys meta because rphys did similar damage to melees (on top of having insane synergy with piercing debuff) and had none of the drawbacks when it came to freedom of movement for mechanics.

SE is terrified of that happening again and thus rphys just do garbage damage forever now.