What were devs thinking when they made Monks?

[Trelaboon]

First, let me say that I have a 60 Monk and he's among my favorite characters I've ever played. That being said, they kinda baffle me. I have a 60 Warrior and a 60 Monk, and I recently made a Paladin of whom is level 53 at the moment. I can honestly say, short of burning evasive on my Warrior, the Monk can tank as well or better than either of my tank classes. I got a little curious just to see how different their defensive skill caps are and am just a little amazed by how much better they are defensively than the other tank classes. Granted they don't have quite as much AC, but that doesn't really even matter.

I know they are technically not the most OP class in the game, and to be fair I sort of wondered what the devs were thinking when they made classes like Shaman as well, but it's a little less weird than the Monk scenario.

Monks Warrior. Paladin

Defense (252). (252) (252)
Dodge (230). (175). (155)
Parry. (---). (230). (200)
Block. (225). (---). (---)
Riposte. (225). (225). (200)

Basically Monks trade Parry for Block, and then have a much higher Dodge skill cap than Warriors. While from a roleplay perspective, this makes sense, from a game mechanic perspective it sort of doesn't. The slight AC difference just doesn't seem to make up for the fact that Monks have higher defensive skill caps and a 30% mana free, fairly short cooldown self heal. To me it just seems crazy that during live they would have made a class that was so tanky while still being pretty damn good DPS. I'm also a little drunk and bored so this post may just be a product of that. Either way.....Classic EQ is a mysterious game sometimes.