Physical...............................................Magic

(Dark) Knight.......................................Black Mage
Thief...................................................White Mage
Dragoon..............................................Red Mage
Gunner/Archer.....................................Time Mage
Monk...................................................Summoner
Samurai/Ninja

it might not always seem like it but there is a pretty even division between physical and magical job classes. i say that because if you look at any of the later ff games there is usually a standard white mage and black mage, then the rest are filled in with fighter classes. every once in a while a crappier fighter has a blue magic element tossed in to add variety. anyhow, which do you usually go with. i think most people stick with physical but magic can be pretty beneficial if you really work at it.

also, as kind of a sub-topic, if you go the magic route do you find yourself making lots of runs to inns to regenerate MP?

I find it to be much more beneficial to use a party that uses both evenly. All Fighters or all Mages is a really stupid idea unless you're trying to do a challenge.

I usually go the fighter/warrior route more than leaning towards magic. The only acception to that rule is that I need a White Mage, especially in the early FF games in the series.

In Final Fantasy V, I made sure that everyone knew at least the first 2 levels of the White Mage abilites so that they could heal and bring teh dead back to life with "Raise". I then used those abilites as secondary abilites for other classes so that my Knight could use his White Mage abilities in battle.

I usually need a mixture to balance out my team. Like if I had all physical characters on my team, I would lack someone to save a wounded warrior (despite the fact I can use a mere potion and what not), I wouldn't have any Black Magic to fend off those who are impervious to physical force. That's why not just me but everyone should have a mixture of the classes, for a smoother approach to fighting.

I lean more towards the magic class. White Mages are helpful for healing, raising, etc, Black Mages can dish out huge amounts of damage, and Blue Mages are cool ^_^
But on the games where there was a provoke type move, I keep a warrior/ninja person for tanking. If I can keep the monsters attacking the tank, that's good because we all know mages have low defense. I even lean towards this way with FFXI, a tank, and black mages because we all know how useful nukes are in MMO's.