NINJA...New Pet Class!

[Shurrikhan]

Rapiers on Fencer/Red Mage, Great Sword for Gladiator/Dark Knight makes the most sense to me.
The way the armoury system works, they could just have the pistol/hexagun as their main weapon, bypassing the need for swords.

I'm a Swordsman--I am thereby limited to arming swords?

I don't know. Practically, speaking, in the event that nothing is willing to change in the armory system, adding two-handed swords, rapiers, whips, and pistols would work. It just still seems like a rather slap-on solution, closer to mimicking chess pieces than being actual characters. Though, I guess that's the Tactics-lead point of jobs in the first place. Staying true to that really has very little to say about MMO character development ability. Choose the best gun for the task and learn how to shoot it. Done. That just doesn't feel very RPG to me. It feels like assembly and polish.

Edit: By "arming swords" I'm referring to the relatively broad spectrum of mid-level, hefty-ish one-handed blades often paired with bucklers, not an official "arming sword" (in the same specificity as say a broadsword).

[Duelle]

Practically, speaking, in the event that nothing is willing to change in the armory system, adding two-handed swords, rapiers, whips, and pistols would work. It just still seems like a rather slap-on solution, closer to mimicking chess pieces than being actual characters. Though, I guess that's the Tactics-led point of jobs in the first place. Staying true to that really has very little to say about MMO character development ability.

It's not meant to be, as here and in FFXI the main aspect of character development is having numerous jobs leveled because of the ability to switch jobs. If we had stand-alone jobs and talent trees/advanced classes, then you could link character development to a singular job and open options within said job. Again, that ship has long since sailed.