Several things in modern FFXI are just time wasters by definition. (Weakness for example, serves no purpose other than to waste your time.)
Gotta completely disagree on this bit (snippeted from your original post- your other comments I had no argument over, just the comments on weakness).
Weakness is a wonderful design in the game. Without it, we could just zombie stuff, but it wouldn't even be zombie. Its that 3-5 minutes out of action that makes strategies built around AVOIDING that result work. If there's no penalty to dying, why try and prevent it beyond a few swings?
Hate too high for the tank to hold it off you? Just die and reset hate, get healed/buffed back up no wait. Hell, why waste a slot on a tank anyways? Just let the DDs go hog wild until they die, and repeat.
Why waste time with defensive buffs? Go all out offense in buffs and gear and get what swings in you can.
If there are functional ways that the game could work without a weakened status in terms of the uniqueness of this game, I'm all for hearing them. I play this game because its NOT like other online games, and I don't think I'm alone in that regard. Weakened status is one of those things that while makes our lives harder during fights/events, also forces a different complexity to not only beating something, but surviving it to maximize efficiency.