Quote Originally Posted by Churchill View Post
"However, being unable to wield or use the highest level magic or equipment, the Red Mage is generally relegated to a support position. They are a jack of all trades, but a master of none."
Which doesn't work in an MMO and forces the developers to give it a menial and iconoclastic "role" because it would otherwise have no other use in-game, easily proven by XI.

If Red mage ever did appear in XIV, it would very likely be much more relevant in its swordplay than say, XI. It wouldn't make much sense for that one aspect to overshadow the other aspects of the job (black magic, white magic, debuffs, buffs, etc).
Considering the context of this game and the armoury system, yes, swordplay would be a lot more relevant for RDM. That's not a bad thing, as it prevents stupid things like RDM with a staff from overtaking everything else. It also forces the developers to make the melee and magic sides of RDM mesh and combine into something, which is a huge improvement over "here's a sword, some white magic, some black magic".