BLU At 99, Outside Abyssea: Misconceptions?

Alright, so I had a couple questions, but I'm currently halfway through Bri Helms, so I ask them both in the context of non-Almace users and Almace users. I know, I know, just finish it. I plan to. But in the meantime...

1.) I was spreadsheeting stuff and I've noticed that, outside of Abyssea, CDC isn't that impressive. It seems like it takes a pretty decent CDC build to outdo even a stardard Requiescat. This is including the Aftermath, even. So, should I even use Lv.85 Almace outside of Abyssea?? It just seems like it's basically a trophy piece people assume is better, and expect you to use it or not bother with BLU, but it isn't really any better. Even in Abyssea, I've seen my 3k Reqs outdo CDC pretty often. Granted, I've also seen 5k CDCs, which my Reqs can't touch. I'm not suggesting it's not worth it in Abyssea though. I'm just assuming they were terribad. I'm just saying... it's happened.

2.) BLU melee has become more and more efficient with the recent-ish-sort-of level cap increases as compared to back at Lv.75. Back then, I noticed I was parsing a good bit better in my relic body simply for the Refresh (Not to recover MP, but rather to allow me to cast more often). These days, I see a lot of recommended gear builds excluding Mavi body +2. Is this in Abyssea only? Should I still be full-timing Mavi +2 to allow myself to cast bigger, stronger spells more often? Or has BLU melee really made spells outside of Chain Affinity and Efflux obsolete (I doubt that)? Or, again, is this only if you have Almace, are in Abyssea, and have a Refresh atma?