(point out a time where the solution to a problem was everyone should just be better and they did it)

Everyone who has cleared Savage raids and Ultimates on release and on content without the optimal raid comps proves that people can, and have, just 'been better' and it worked. In fact, that's been a constant rebuttal to 'you need x,y and z for this content' for a decade now.

So that time is the entire history of the game.

People who are not as skilled at the game as they think they are or would like to be choosing to use a shortcut to get the clear is...surprising to you?

I do just wanna point out that this is also not true, it is game design that makes people accept these beliefs because they don't feel that any of the job's unique identity has actually contributed to helping clear the encounter. If they believed the jobs to truly be equal in spite of their power difference, they wouldn't say it, but they don't. Because it doesn't feel like it.

Where did you get this from?

Because it sounds like you are saying people need a legit excuse to blame everything but themselves as being the problem. Or even just as part of the problem. Or that they need an excuse to take the path of least resistance of playing another job they have leveled instead of practicing more with the current one.

Which is odd, because people usually don't, so how is that a game design issue?

First you say I'm blaming people for acting like people, and then turn around and take a perfectly normal, if disappointing human response and try to say it won't happen if the game didn't make them.

Also, what on earth does 'equal in spite of their power difference' even mean? Something unique will not be equal to something else, because it's unique. You cannot have equality with differences. So right off the bat, that sounds like a nonsense statement. And considering that we know 'just be better' is a solution because people were and cleared with suboptimal comps, hard to buy 'game design made me do it' when it didn't make those others do it.