So basically, what you're saying...since I been gone all this time..(Been gone 4yrs roughly)
Its pointless to gear my bard, since over all the other REM BRDs out there, I would never be accepted into anything over another player.
It's hard to answer, depends what kind of content you want to do.
I'm mostly talking about the tough stuff in Escha/Reisenjima.
For other content (Delve, maybe Skirmish, easier Escha NMs, High Tier battlefields etc) BRD can still be useful.
Basically in every content where you can safely and reliably deploy DD jobs, BRD is gonna be useful.
Not necessary, more often than not not the best either, but certainly useful.
In the rest of content 99% of the times you're setting up your group with tanks, healers and a combination of mage jobs to create Skillchains (SCH) and magic burst on those SCs (BLMs, arguably SCH too). Also you have buffer jobs who can nuke and buff at the same time (Mainly GEOs, arguably COR)
The question at this point becomes:
Is BRD useful in such a setup?
Short answer is: No.
Long answer is: BRD can surely bring some utility, it's not like the BLMs won't like some INT etudes and marches and/or ballads, but for that to happen you either have to leave a spot in the mage pt for the BRD or swap with someone else, which is very annoying.
Would the tank apreciate some march, scherzo, minne, madrigal or whatever else. Of course, but it's not necessary at all.
Likewise the healers with ballads.
You have to consider that the HP of these NMs scales with the number of players you pop them with. Bringing one more player ==> the monster (and his adds, if he has any) is gonna have more HP.
If you're with, say, 10 people in your group and want to bring a BRD you have to ask yourself: will the "bonuses" this job brings compensate for the additional health points?
More often than not, for BRD and for many other jobs, the answer is NO, especially if you're already struggling to kill that NM within the time limit.
Which is exactely why people tend to leave things they don't "need" outside of their alliances. This is the crucial factor, more than the fact that BRD is useless.
BRD is cool, but it's just not as useful as other jobs for mage-based setups, and game is very reliant on mage-based setups atm.
I consider myself a very dedicated BRD player, I love the job and I have Gjallarhorn 99, Daurdabla 99, Carnwenhan 119 and soon (I hope!) Marsyas.
Still, this doesn't change my opinion, as much as it hurts me I have to admit there's hardly a worthy space for BRD in the majority of this type of end-game content.
And even in the rest of the game (where BRD can be a meaningful help) other jobs often do a better job.
Take GEO. GEO is easy to gear up, and even with just basic gear, capped skills and Dunna, it arguably performs better than a BRD with 4 songs and Horn, which trust me requires A LOT of dedication.
Is that fair? No, but that's how things are atm, in my opinion.