What are you talking about? Red Mage had shit damage for all of EW and now it's finally in a good spot damage-wise.
I will say that parties are far less reliant on Red Mages to save the day now that swiftcast is just 40 seconds. Now that phoenix down will be usable in multiple duties, I think it will be even less common.
Also, I don't really get why acceleration works the way it does now. It was useful for syncing GCDs/oGCDs after a melee and finisher combo (or if you screwed up) but now it doesn't do that anymore because it gives you two instant casts. I have to use swiftcast for that now. It makes me wonder if they reduced the swiftcast cooldown just for RDM.