I'm a level 52 Bard on Slyph (name: Agenais). I can venture a guess why people aren't seeing too many Bards, from my own personal experience.
For the first few levels (till around 15 or so) Bard's really don't make all that much of a difference, and with it being difficult to solo, it can be very disheartening. Things will start picking up later, though, and XP will start rolling in. However, here are some things to consider if you plan on playing a Bard.
Bard's basically wear the same gear as Thieves, so go ahead and do some fighting with the group after you cast your songs. The Bard's dynamics, however, will change at 25 with Mage Ballad, which is the beginning point of where you'll have songs that actually benefit a mage class. As a result of this, you'll do more singing than fighting.
As you get further down the road, the difference between the damage you'll do, and the fighters around you will become very noticable, at which point you'll move more into the back line, and more than likely, into a Mage sub.
What most people don't understand when they say that a WHM is what a Bard should sub is that in order for a Bard to sub it, they have to change out nearly all of their equipment to accomidate that. Bard is just about the only class that has to do things to hurt the Main class to make the Sub class useful.
In addition, Bards have a hard enough time getting party members to properly seperate so that melees aren't getting MP regen, and mages aren't getting accuracy boosts. Trying to do that in additon to casting spells, keeping an eye on the mob to cast Magic Finale when needed, party members HP, keeping an eye on Lullabied monsters (in case of a bad pull or a "pop"), and trying to find the opprotunity to rest to regen MP, makes for a -very- busy job. Especially if party members don't want to cooperate in keep the mages / melee's seperate: it only makes the Bard's job even harder.
As Bard gets to the higher levels, the less he can do on his own. Want to run out and grab your RSE? Better bring a group. Want to do some farming? Better bring a friend. You'll find yourself using your 2-Hour and half of your mana to keep yourself alive in a battle against a monster that's "Too Weak to Be Worthwhile".
You'll come to relize that you simply cannot function without a group, and a fair-sized one at that (4+ members), as the Bard's abilities don't effect any one person enough to make the kind of difference you would need in a small group or solo.
This could become an issue later, since the Bard's sole purpose in the game is to make everything easier for the group members. The easier the Bard makes things for the group members, the harder things are for the Bard.
Another thing to look out for is something every player hates: stagnation. While the Bard has a vast number of songs (80+), only a mere fraction of them will see any use: Minuet, Madrigal, Ballad, Paeon, Prelude (if there's a Ranger in the group), and the occasional (Spirited) Etude. Paeon and Etude go out the window if you have a particularly fast puller.
The remainder of the Bard's party buff songs are far too situational, or to weak, to be of any, real, practical use. If they could be cast without it taking up a space in the 2 song buffer, then they could be worth using, but otherwise, leave the things these songs do: Carol (elemental protection), Minne (defense up), March (attack speed up) to the White Mage (Barwatera + etc. / Protect / Haste, respectively).
Just a tip, though, to make your life easier while also helping people who haven't been grouped with a Bard before become more familiar with the songs, have a little snippet of what the song does in your macro. Here's an example from a macro I have for Mage's Ballad.
/song "Mage Ballad"
/wait 2
/p "Gotta let your soul glow!" 1 MP every 1.5 seconds.
This not only tells people what the song does, but it gives them time to move into range if they aren't already. It also helps to have a little something that's entertaining to read as well: it helps morale. The happier a group member is, the longer they'll want to stay, and the more EXP / money / goodies you all will get.
One more note to perspective Bards: Flutes are more potent (easier to get an attack song to stick on a mob) while Harps have greater range. You'll find yourself using Flutes more than anything else throughout the game, but build up both, as nearly every instrument above level 60 is a Harp. As for what pluses to songs to keep an eye out for on a instrument with a bonus to:
Requiem, Elegy, Lullaby, Paeon, and Madrigal.
+1 doesn't always equate to the same thing, however. A +1 to Minuet allows your Minuet to give a +38 to your attack instead of a +37: a minescule difference. However, a +1 to Lullaby -doubles- the amount of time a mob is asleep (ever wonder why the Mary's Horn goes for so much?).
And a few somethings for people partied with Bards:
1st: Every song for the party has a cast time of 8 seconds (with the exception of Prelude which only effects one person, and has a cast time of 4 seconds). Attack songs (Requiem, Finale, Lullaby, Elegy, and Threnody) have a cast time of 2 seconds. -Every- song has a 24 second recast timer on it.
2nd: In most cases, different levels of the same song stacks: therefore, Minuet II and Minuet III would stack with each other. This, however, doesn't apply to the attack songs.
3rd: Please, please, please don't tell the Bard what and whatnot to sing unless you need a mob weakened to a particular elemental for a spell / skillchain (this particularly goes to the mage/melee hybrids out there: Dark Knights and Paladins). Bards have more than enough on their plate without someone breathing down their neck about what songs to sing.
If you are a melee needing Mage Ballad for your MP, either wait till the end of battle, or step away from the mob to grab Ballad when the Bard casts it on the mages, or have the party organize itself in a way where pure Melees are on one side of the mob so they keep their Minuet and Madrigal, the Hybrids on another so they get, say, Madrigal and Ballad, and the Mages behind the Bard so they also get Ballad when the Bard casts it for the Hybrids.
4th: The Bard's 2-Hour doubles the power of all of his song effects. A Paeon IV that was healing 4 HP every 1.5 seconds is now healing 8 HP. An enemy that would sleep for 17 seconds with Lullaby is now asleep for 34 seconds. A Bard may use this if he catches that a battle is going bad early on, or he may use it to cut down on the downtime after a particular tough battle.
5th: If there's a bad pull or a mob that "pop"'s in the middle of a party in mid battle, keep your focus on one mob at a time so that the Bard can keep the other one asleep. This means no AoE's (-Ga spells, Circle Scythe, Cyclone, etc). 24 seconds on a Lullaby recast is a long time for a Bard to wait when a creature is beating on him from a misplaced attack.
6th: The last, and by FAR the most important rule: keep mages and melee's seperate! This is generally more of a problem of the mage's than the melee's, for they sometimes have a habit on sitting in middle of the fighters, or on top of the mob itself.
If you're a White Mage, Attack UP and Accuracy UP isn't going to do you -any- good. Hang away from the fighters so the Bard doesn't have to run to awkard and dangerous positions to give you the benefit of a song that wouldn't help a melee (and viceversa).
I have more I could write, but I think I've rambled on enough for now. :) By the way, feel free to thank your Bard if they're doing a good job. A little thanks can do a long way to a class that puts in more work than most people realize. ^_^
