I agree with you regarding EXP. Melee burn or TP burn, whatever, was always viable for EXP but I was referring more to other content endgame content. Like Kirin, for example. When Kirin first came out, linkshells used BLMs and RNGs (pre-RNG nerf) to kill it and it took an hour. Then suddenly, somewhere around ToAU release, people realized they could TP burn it by using melee and rotating BRDs and linkshells started killing it in 3-5 minutes. Eventually with continuous improvements to gear and skill we got that down to under 60 seconds, but it took a while. Nothing fundamentally changed with Kirin or with the jobs in the interim, it's just that we learned how to play the game better and gear ourselves for it.
Here's a nice sub-5 minute Kirin kill from my old Fairy linkshell, right around the start of the "meleeburn everything" era. 2006. Almost 12 years ago. (holy crap I'm old)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z41Qp2IfHkg Nice video. So this can be done here in the same amount of time. My Linkshell has done at least five Kirin melee burns in the 5-10 minute timeframe.
Also, you've missed the point of the thread. You should be here to either support TOAU mobs levels being reduced or not.