I'm not a dev nor do I write on behalf on CNE, but a few things come to mind, reading your post:

- I believe we are in a stage with Crusaders as a game where hardly any decisions on Tags, Abilities or upgrades of new crusaders are unintentional. This is valid for both of your two segments.

- From my perspective, EPs are not wasted for any crusader in the same slot as potential main DPS-crusaders or potential main DPS crusaders themselves. Meaning, Snickette might not be your first choice as female DPS crusader, but her EP helps Sarah's EP-level if you rely on that sort of thing. Upgrading the talent to max, every one EP of Snickette is Sarah's EP, too. Also, having some objectives restrictions in mind, I think I remember some occasions where my main DPS dealer wasn't a crusader who is intended as a DPS-crusader. So, even there EPs might still have potential from my point of view.

- to your suggestion: What is your biggest EP-level for a single slot of crusaders? At a first glance, this would be a massive increase in DPS which is unlikely to be wanted after the huge boost possible through crafting at the moment or near future. Besides the unanswered question if your suggestion is valid for all crusaders, all crusaders not on missions or only crusaders in your formation (do crusaders on missions share their EP then, though? They shouldn't since they are on a mission and don't participate in the current objective, right?)

- specifically to your second segment: I'ld rather have these three not activating an ability but having another, better ability instead. Because for me, I hardly ever use these abilities. For Free Plays I never have used them at all. So, whenever they are needed, I think it is pretty much ok to swap said crusader out of formation and bring one in who can activate the ability. If they aren't available due to objective's restrictions, well, logically they weren't available before then, either, right? I also don't believe CNE would consider allowing two abilities for one at the moment.

Also, I'd like to add (for clarity), how I see the different seat specializations:

Note: The seats can give other stuff too, but they always give:
1 - Clickstuff and Click-o-Rama
2 - Rowbuffing
3 - Supernatural DPSer
4 - Flexible role (Except Sasha, but she is insanely outdated)
5 - Male DPSer
6 - Gold-ability and Magnify
7 - Firestorm
8 - Goldgear (This slot could also become the "progression"-slot, so Billy is not 100% supreme)
9 - Goldgear and Tankrelated stuff (Except Pete, but he is also a bit outdated)
10 - Savage Strikes, DPSbuffers
11 - Healers, DPSbuffers
12 - Damage reduction
13 - Females (Or, it had an "Proud/Arrogant/Greedy DPSer" kind of theme too, which would still fit if Snickette and Squiggles swapped seats)
14 - Goldgear, Gold-abiliy and Gold-o-rama (Except for Katie)
15 - ... Actually, got no idea what these guys are about. It seemed to be about DPS though, until Val showed up.
16 - Death-related support
17 - Royal Command and strong niche-buffers (Except for Squiggles)
18 - Storm Rider
19 - Alchemy (Except for Petra. If you say niche is Alchemy and/or Splash-damage, she still fits there though)
20 - Resetting DPSers
21 - Flexible effects, depending on Proximity (Exterminator = DPSer, or goldfinder. Good Witch = Healer, or DPSbuffer)
22 - Isolation based support (Ilsa is a DPSer who feeds on others' DPS, similar to RoboTurkey, so she is actually more a Support)
23 - Goldgear and DPSsupport

So, the inconsistencies are growing more and more, as time passes. Either I'm just a picky fellow (always have been, so I guess I still am!), or the devs seem to be either intentionally or unintentionally ignoring the old seat specialisations.

I just wanna know...

Why?

@Muljo Stpho

1) I understand the whole "create something new" perspective, but why does it have to be in such an inconsistent manner? I dunno if it's something mentally wrong with me, but I REALLY hate when consistent things change so radically.

2) But seat 8 is at least consistent due to that. There has been no expected theme besides their goldgear. And that's good.
However, I think it could be nice to solidify the identity of each seat, so we know more or less what to expect. For Seat 8 I'd love it if it always brought (even if minor) something that helped speeding up progression. Billy already has it. Jack's Knock Knock and Karl's Lace Up (which are entirely useless abilities right now) could be simple "spawnspeed" abilities. Could do something (albeit weaker?) for Natalie too.

And if anything, I overall don't mind if some expectations change. But when a seat known for having an active ability has a Crusader which does NOT bring said active ability... that feels very, very wrong somehow.
That's why Val, a Healer/Support, being in her seat which is otherwise just full of DPSers, doesn't bother me at all. But Katie/Squiggles/Petra really do.

3) Why did you have to bring that up? T_T
I also hate that the legendaries FURTHER cement that abilities are meant to be used with very specific Crusaders for optimal use of that ability (i hate optimum-active-ability-swapping, because it's tedious and also kind of hard to pull off due to high-level lagging, which is ironic considering that's when you start to need them...). Yeah, I truly and utterly hate pidegonholing!

Now, I don't mind some forced pidgeonholing here and there, for example, a campaign forcing me to use only males? Fine, I'd have to work out on my own how I'd like to deal with such a campaign. But when I have a choice on who to use for a specific active ability? Well, I DON'T have a choice. Royal Command is gonna be 100% King Reginald's or Boggin's active ability now. Using it with Siri will now ALWAYS be a waste (unless you can't use Reg/Bog due to a specific campaign restriction, but that's completely besides the point).

I mean, I have suggested before that gear that affect active abilities should work more like trinkets, meaning, they benefit for the ability no matter which Crusader from that seat you use. For example, what if:
Reginald reduced cooldown of Royal Command
+ Siri increased the duration of Royal Command
+ Boggins increased the damage taken of enemies paused by Royal Command.
+ If you activate it with either Crusader, all 3 benefits happen at once!
That way, there is no need to swap Crusaders for optimal active ability use + you can be more varied with their gear in regards to what they do towards active abilities (instead of all being the boring same).

With Legendaries it's even worse though, because it is further inconsistent in that it is only for certain Crusaders:
* Only Gold Panda has an interaction with Gold-o-Rama, all the others (Katie obviously not, being incapable of it) do not.
* Reginald and Siri affect RC, but Siri does not and Squiggles don't even have the RC-ability...
* Thalia has 2 Legendaries affecting SR, Littlefoot and Frosty has 1 each and I dunno about Cindy (prolly not, because who cares about consistency anyway!)
* Actually, no there is no Legendary bonus for Merci's Alchemy (that's just his normal gear bonus). Bat has one though. Petra ofc doesn't due to not having the ability.

I mean, I really like this game. Has a very nice design and creative abilities etc. But it's getting more and more inconsistent with these kind of things, and it really saddens me, because I know I have NO say whatsoever in regards to discussing on how I'd like them to change :(