Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

[Malthir]

Removing auto attack would enable them to make our active potency higher, and it would feel like we are in control of our entire output. I agree that they are meaningless and I would describe them as archaic.

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.