Flavor vs. Usefulness

[Saber]

I always went Fighter, Black mage, White mage, Monk. Reading this thread though makes me think fighter, white mage, black mage, thief is the best set up since you can use all the items and well they all get good with the class upgrade. Black belt to monk isn't all that special.

Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage is great, the only annoyance is that Thief completely blows at everything except Running from battles.

That is, until you do Class Change and they all become super-gods -then your Knight and Ninja alone will be powerful enough to kill everything on their own.
As a matter of fact, I personally tend to let the wizards spam Heal Staffs and Heal Helmets full-time after Class Change, with some occasional status spell every now and then.

Yes and with the items that cast magic you can go ahead and forget the spells on your white mage / black mage. As long as you can do the spell you won't need multiple ways of doing it. Heal 2 is the best example. Go ahead and forget it and get something else on the empty magic slot.

Sadly though I don't run away from a battle unless I'm in a hurry or tired.