I think Gauss Barrel makes more sense for its job than Wanderer's Minuet does for bards, but it's also a definite fact that I enjoyed MCH more before Gauss Barrel became a thing at 52.

While it's true that the changes that these stances got in recent patches has made the jobs competitive again DPS-wise, I think it's just an odd way of playing ranged jobs. They give you all this mobility to set you apart from other jobs and then give you a shiny new ability that takes it all away - it's just odd, regardless of how it performs.