A game mechanic I've always wondered about

I've always felt that the "cannot target self" mechanic was a very anti-immersive mechanic that was pretty much the game saying "No, we don't want you to play that way."

I would be perfectly fine with simply removing it altogether. If it did require some balance then it seems that the latest power changes that have conditional results would be the way to go about achieving whatever balance issues were raised.

For point and reference (sorry about the enormous post size):

Support Set Soloability Chart
This color indicates a power is usable when solo

What's kind of silly for the powers that 'can not target self' is that fact that they now effect everyone in the caster's radius EXCEPT the caster.

A side benefit for me with being able to target myself, I would be more apt to apply them to the team on more consistent basis because I would be more aware of when the power wore off.

I often thought that Vigilence should be reworked to give Defenders a damage boost solo, with the ability to buff / heal themselves. However, all buffs, heals, and debuffs would be dimished while solo, and as the team size increases, the damage boost decreases, while buffs, heals, debuffs effectiveness would increase and the effect on the caster for heals and buffs decreases.

So on small teams Defender buffs, heals, and debuffs may not be as strong as they are, on mid-sized teams, they'd be the same, and on large times, they would slightly be increased.

I really like having the option to make a character whose power depends on being in a team. I'm currently playing two such characters, and enjoy the fact that I'm pushed into forming teams, rather than just defaulting to solo. (So are my seven teammates, I hope)
I'm glad that there are support sets that solo well too, and I play them.

"Only useable on others" is a legitimate disadvantage to give a power.
Just like "7 foot range" is. It would be nice to be able to use those powers on myself, just like it would be nice if all my Scrappers attacks had their range extended to 80ft so I wouldn't have to run around as much.
Or maybe I should play a Blaster instead?

Empaths would indeed benefit from self targetting. Fortitude itself is close to the entire Super Reflexes set. Adrenalin Boost makes it crazy, and turns the Empath into a Super Reflexes/Regen Scrapper with ranged attacks. I've played in an empath duo, I know the numbers bear out in real play here.

So rather than mahsing all support sets into one model, lets keep them diverse. If you want a self-targetting empath, play Time Manipulation. You can boost your own defence, recovery and regen (sort of) that way as awell as your team. You won't be able to buff a single ally as well as an Empath, but that's balance.

Debuffers currently do pay for their self-buffing to some degree against AV's and Elite Bosses with purple triangles.

Radiation Infection wont provide the team the same margin of safety that Force Field or Cold shields do in that situation.

Whether that's enough to balance the inability to self-buff, I'm not sure.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Even for villains, its not a big enough part of gameplay.

It would be better if the "only affect team" powers were noticeably better at helping a team than the "affect everyone" powers, like someone said earlier.

Take Storm and Force Field. Storm allows you to solo well, FF less so. But on a team, when the FF-er rocks up, you get a sense of security that Storm doesn't give you. You know you're getting 40% extra defence unless the FF Defender is asleep at the keyboard, whereas the Stormy gives you maybe a comparable to hit debuff on someone who might be over there by now, and if the Defender can close first.

That's a good balance in my opinion. Solo-able set with some shaky team support vs rocksolid team support that doesn't solo as well (but still gets some self buffs btw). Both sets have a niche.

Newer sets specifically Time, kind of upsets this balance. Everyone including the caster gets the buffs reliably. I cant see a downside, and consequently some of the older sets look a bit lacking.

I'm still confused as to why this limitation hasn't been lifted yet, considering the recent lift of the Teleport/Flight pool ban for Kheldians on the Beta Server.

Small idea: The new animation used for Inner Will could be used for self buffs like Speed Boost, Heal Other, etc.

Personally I've always felt that the best way to buff the buff-centric sets is to have the ally buff powers grant the owner an un-enhanceable auto-power simply for owning the ally buff. It doesn't need to be as powerful as the ally buff and the general strength could be adjusted up and down or even eliminated based on how much help the set needs. Cold Domination for example doesn't really need anything but similar powers in Thermal Sonic and FF probably could benefit form that.