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To be honest Ninjarr that is not far from things we have considered. A lot of talk has gone on about things like that and personally I feel that it would be a great experience if it were pulled off correctly, and it definately allows for a wide range of people to interact and try different things than they are used to. The trick as I'm sure you're aware of pulling it off in some natural feeling way, and balancing wouldn't be far from a nightmare.
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There is a huge problem with what you just said, and the way the industry has sculpted classes, and its based around a very fundamental idea:
"balance is important."
First, consider the holy trinity: Tanks, Healers, Damage Dealers.
Here is a general example of what I am imagining for classes and the lack of need for balance:
Say I choose to be the tank class in the steampunk era. Now, as that specific branch, I have access to training against suitable foes that the steampunk era has conquered. For instance, a tank from this era would be highly resistive to physical damage due to metal armor (and would be a good tank in prehistoric setting), on the other hand he would not be very resistant to magic such as lightning which would penetrate the armor (and thus would not tank well against a magic high fantasy setting). The fun comes in when you have boss encounters that are aware of "time travel" and use it to their advantage, taking pieces from each and combining them into a unique encounter which requires strange combinations of players.
As the story of the game ages and new encounters are made to fit it, you have an ever changing set of "hot classes" which fit the encounters best. Its cool to be the "outsider" at times because eventually you may be needed. Who would have thought that there would be a need for a so-and-so? The same idea goes for healers with respect to what kind of damage they can prevent (armor repairs? physical healing? mana healing?), and damage dealers with damage they can deal.
