Not sure if you ever played FFXI. But one of the last jobs they added, dancer, had personal buffs that inflicted a debuff on the mob, that then gave a buff to every player who then hit the mob while they had the debuff on. Very similar to speed surge.

I see speed surge doing essentially the same thing, so the lowered attack duration may not be a personal buff only, but it may put lancer into a pseudo support role, in that whichever surge they have will benefit everyone in the group.