What I would like to see is a direct answer to what the current developers see in each proffession. Let me explain that before I go any further.
In the begining before expansions and boosters AO was pretty simple to define tanks, healers, DD, or support. You could of course bend those rules a little but it was at cost of giving up what your prof was naturally strong in. IP's were less back then so you could make a DD crit doc but your nanos sucked. Or make a max healing support MA at cost of DD ability.
The problem I see is that with each expansion or booster those roles have been blurred. I can even tell you it started with NW when you had enforcers and doctors hot swapping with x-3 or caterwaul aimed shot rifles. To balance that caterwaul rifles were made agent only. Now at this point it would have been easy to keep AS agent only as this is probably one of the most decisive pvp elements in game. Another example take a look at advy, they used to be luke warm middle of the road jack of all trades masters of none. Dual wielding a pistol and sword. Now they are a top DD and 2nd best healer in game, with AS/sneak/dimach/brawl/fling/burst/Full auto/fast attack. The can do anything and do it all well.
Now granted one of the best things about AO was that you had flexibility to make your toon out of the box like a MA trader instead of shotgun. But in current AO there is no tradeoff or downside for having an assault rifle enforcer. Now i'm not advocating to make proffessions cookie cutter, but I would like to see more defined roles.
How to do this you might ask? How do you make weapons more class prefered without making them all class specific? You change the way specials work. Dimach is on 30min timer unless you are shade/keeper/ma. Why not do same with Aimed shot and sneak attack? Would that tip the balance for pvp too much to the profs that have that short recharge? Maybe, maybe not, but it's just an idea. I just don't understand why in the current game world every class can use AS just as good as agents or SA just as good as shades. Even crit setups almost as good as MA's and cap you without too much trouble and not much tradeoff.
I am sure this will not be a popular idea. So I've got my firemans gear on for the flames. This is not meant to take away from anyone's creativity in character builds.
I just feel the game loses something when you see a keeper hotswapping a craphander for AS and it just seems wrong. Can I get an amen?
So in closing I'd just like some form of answer about how the developers see each proffession.