I also am and will be an elemental caster type, but don't see the same issue as you, IF stats are automatically alloted to a class then it makes gear all the more important to seperate one of us from the next.
Lets not forget that gear and progression is the main reason most of us play these games.
I would like to see a compromise though in the way that stats are alloted automatically but elemental (stat points) affinity is user defined.
That being said I am pretty sure they plan to make stat points user defined across all classes and then save them to that class.