Bringing everything to a standard is an easy way to balance but "standardization" has long gotten out of hand and has been taken to the extreme effectively not making skills or skill lines perform at an equal level but making them the same one thing. Many skills suffered this fate through the years and lost much of their unique flavour. Now ultimate generation passives suffer the same fate this time in the name of subclassing(multiclassing). It might not seem like much but it makes the game feel ever so bland. Diversity and flavour have been peeled bit by bit by standardization, hybridization and now subclassing.

The fact that this change is just the first step is extremely disturbing. I'm certain that many players myself included would love to see balancing taken care of in a manner that incentivizes diversity of feel and playstyles rather than the other way around.

I strongly encourage players to be vocal on this subject, the game can't take much more of this treatment.