You are contradicting yourself
The bard in 2e was nearly a full spellcaster as you mentioned. His generous xp progression allowed him to have level 3 spells at the same time the wizard does and then he casts at lvl 7, not 5. He has slightly less spells per day and so it evens out.
Now in 5e he is finally a full spellcaster again. So actually his focus on spellcasting is not really more than in 2e.
Can you explain to me how this is a "contradiction"? I'm confused.
In 2e, as per RAW, the bard did not sing during the fight, but he had to sing before the fight to bolster his allies. So all in all, the 5e bard is very comparable to the 2e bard.
For three rounds before the fight, yes, but the 5E one cannot do even that.
I do believ bolsteing allies will be done via spellcasting. There really is no need to have additional layers. His spells are his songs.
I was thinking the exact same until I saw the Alpha Bard spell list!
The Bard has
none of the expected "buff the party" spells. I see literally no party-buffing spells in his list from spell levels 1-5 (stopped looking after that, because campaigns that go past 10 are somewhat uncommon, I am told).
Cleric has Bless, Protection from Evil, Aid, Beacon of Hope, Magic Circle, Prayer, Death Ward in those levels.
I'm not saying the Bard should have the same exact spells, but when both Bless and Prayer do the exact same things as pre-5E Bard abilities (i.e. buff the party by a small amount during combat), I think that is a big problem.
What's weird is, all the Paladin's Auras are spells (makes sense, right?) but none of the Bard's songs are.
I do think what you're proposing is a good design, but it isn't the design in the Playtest or the Alpha. Let's hope it changed.
And if you add subclasses, there will most probably be a subclass that bolsters allies during fights.
In the Playtest, all did. In the Alpha, you can only buff 1 ally for 1 roll, CHA mod times/day. You have to do this pre-emptively and it costs a Bonus action (so 1/round at most).
3.5 remedied a bit by giving him some exclusive spells and shifting some bard spells to lower levels (tasha´s hideous loughter) and allowing him to cast in armor, which even the 2e bard was not allowed. Pathfinder (although i don´t play it) made the bard decent again, by upping hp, spellcasting and skills.
I agree.
Last, the 5e playtest bard was quite imbalanced. Too few hp, and spellcasting. Way overpowered battle songs. Not working for a base class.
I'm not saying he didn't need adjusting, I'm saying a Bard who can't sing/orate and buff the party isn't really a D&D Bard. If the Cleric can have Bless and Aid, the Bard can certainly have them too, or Bard versions of them.
This would be easy to fix by making Song-Spells, the Alpha didn't have those, let's hope the actual release does.