I don't think it was fine before though? You had to play with buffs on to be able to level up otherwise you'd just die & it'd take forever. So you had to level up a cleric at the same time, or have a friend playing cleric, or ask for buffs in Junon before going xp. You couldn't realistically play without a cleric. Our idea with the change was to make clerics less preponderant in the game. They're still required at high level in raids & dungeons, but you don't need to have one to level up as a casual player anymore.
Maybe it's not a good idea and we'll run a survey after EA starts to see how the community feels about the change, but we do want to change this buff-centric meta that's been running since forever in the game. As a casual player, you shouldn't have to dual account with a cleric.