I don't really get why people hold up FFVI as an example of distinct roles for characters rather than the beginning of the end for them. Sure, the characters have distinct roles early on, but that mostly falls by the wayside once you get espers. The magic users lose almost all distinctness because there isn't a spell they can learn that can't be learned by virtually everyone else and the others retain their special abilities but they usually don't do any better job than magic, so why bother? Heck, even early on, to be honest, there's not that much difference among the characters if you're straight up attacking. Compare it to FFIV where attacking with Rydia, Tellah, Palom, Porom, etc. is practically a waste of a turn.