Dps jobs share at least 90% of their abilities

[DixieBellOCE]

Design a job that doesn't.

I am actually intrigued as to what someone could come up with.

That wouldnt be terribly hard.

Something akin to an elemental duelist, where you apply certain elemental debuffs to proc other effects when using different abilities.

You could even make it a status based gamplay where you apply dots/debuffs based on what elements combine.

Fire/Ice/Lightning/Earth

Fire+ice = water
Fire+Light = Explosive
Fire+Earth = Lava

Ice+Earth = Frozen
Ice+Lightning = ???

Lightning+Earth = ???

Each combination could apply different DoT or Status effects that help your party.

There we go, a job that doesn't have a gauge and plays extremely unique compared to anything else in the game.

[VirusOnline]

That wouldnt be terribly hard.

Something akin to an elemental duelist, where you apply certain elemental debuffs to proc other effects when using different abilities.

You could even make it a status based gamplay where you apply dots/debuffs based on what elements combine.

Fire/Ice/Lightning/Earth

Fire+ice = water
Fire+Light = Explosive
Fire+Earth = Lava

Ice+Earth = Frozen
Ice+Lightning = ???

Lightning+Earth = ???

Each combination could apply different DoT or Status effects that help your party.

There we go, a job that doesn't have a gauge and plays extremely unique compared to anything else in the game.

You don't need a job gauge for anything. It's a mechanic and nothing more.
What SE uses them for is as a way to give each class its "ultimate" ability which usually falls within that 2m window.
Sure the above class may not use a gauge, but it's ultimate would operate on a 2m CD either way and we end up with the same problem OP presented.

It may "sound" unique, but it'll have it's single target and aoe rotations all the same just like old SMN.